


Dazzling Warrior Nightshade

by whoneedsapublisher



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: AU where only Nico is an idol, Alternate Universe - Magical Girls, F/F, Magical Girls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-05-13 18:19:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14753900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whoneedsapublisher/pseuds/whoneedsapublisher
Summary: Nico Yazawa leads a double life- by day, she's a student, and by night, an idol. Kept busy enough by trying to juggle the responsibilities of both of those, she's suddenly thrust into more trouble when a mysterious space creature grants her magical powers. Forced to take up the mantle of Dazzling Warrior Nightshade to protect the earth from the vicious Constellions, Nico’s time is stretched thin as she fights monsters while trying not to flunk out of school. And just when she thought life couldn't get any more complicated, Maki enters the picture.





	1. Identities and Origin

Nico had entirely too many lives. Not in a useful “cat with eight second chances” kind of way, but in the way that people with demanding careers found it hard to make time for their family. Living a double life was hard enough, but Nico Yazawa was currently attempting to a manage a _triple_ life, and things were starting to fray at the edges.

It had been bad enough trying to manage two. When she’d finally got her first chance to debut as an idol, practice, auditions, and events started to take up more and more of her time. Her grades had started to suffer, of course- she wasn’t great at academics in the first place, and the last thing she needed was _less_ time to study. But she’d managed regardless. Being an idol was her dream, and she was determined to do whatever it took to make it happen. If that meant sleepless nights poring over notes and lunch breaks devoted to dance practice, then she’d endure it. It wasn’t easy, but it was working.

Then one night, everything got a little bit harder.

* * *

Nico was walking home late.

Practice had run on longer than she’d expected, and even as she walked she was already trying to work out how she was going to finish her homework in time when she was already behind schedule. Unfortunately, she hadn’t yet come up with any brilliant ideas for how to get home instantly or finish her homework faster than her pen could move. It was looking like another night with not enough sleep ahead of her. Hopefully she’d manage to stay awake in class this time…

Staring up at the sky idly as she walked, she saw a shooting star drifting by, leaving a trail of light in its wake. She paused a moment on the empty street to watch it She really shouldn’t- every minute she wasted here was another minute less of sleep she got. Besides, she was too old to be making wishes on stars. Still, she couldn’t help but stare as it made its way across the inky blackness of the night sky.

Then something unusual happened.

Rather than continuing its slow path towards the horizon, the “star” stopped abruptly, turned, and started flying _right at her_.

It all happened too quickly to react. One minute, it was a distant speck, only distinguished from the twinkles around it by its tail and brightness, and the next it was a huge ball of light hurtling at her too fast to possibly avoid. She lifted up her hands to shield herself and turned her face away, squeezing her eyes shut. Was this how it ended? Hit by a meteorite? What an ignoble end for the up and coming star, the soon to be famous idol Nico N-

Even through her closed eyes, she could tell there was a flash of blinding light. There was boom loud enough to rattle her teeth, and a sudden tingle overtook her body, making her feel like lightning was coursing through her veins. Then… nothing. Silence, and the sounds of the city filtering back into her ears as the ringing from the loud noise faded. Hesitantly, she opened her eyes.

Her hand was still in front of her face. Now, though, what met her eyes wasn’t the ever familiar back of her hand that she expected, but a strange black glove with glittering obsidian knuckles.

“What the…?”

“Greetings!” A tiny voice piped up from the side. Nico turned to see a furry little creature sitting on a wall and waving at her. It looked a bit like a squirrel crossed with a ferret, with little brown wings that looked more like bat wings covered in fuzz than a bird’s wings. It was surprisingly cute, but undeniably bizarre.

“You have been selected to help protect the earth as Dazzling Warrior Nightshade!”

Nico blinked. The creature was actually talking. And making very little sense.

“What? Protect the earth? Dazzling _what_?”

She looked down at herself and her eyes widened in shock. Instead of her normal school outfit, complete with slightly scuffed shoes and a small repaired tear in the side of her blouse, she found herself decked out in some kind of ridiculous cosplay outfit that put the most over the top outfits she’d worn as an idol to shame.

The first thing she noticed was that her shoes had vanished, replaced with tight fitting boots with visibly reinforced tips and heels. Just like her knuckles, they glittered in the light of the streetlamp with even the smallest movement. The boots lead up into thick black stockings,, which normally she would consider pretty daring, but in this outfit were refreshingly normal. Much less normal was the dark black skirt that faded seamlessly into her equally black blouse, with white trimming and a shifting pattern of light points that appeared to be moving even as Nico looked at it. It looked like stars drifting across space. Almost like someone had held Nico up in the air and turned her torso invisible, then watched the night sky as the seasons passed.

The creature on the wall interrupted her thoughts. “Quickly, Nightshade! A monster will attack at any moment! Prepare yourself for battle!”

“What?” Nico asked, still reeling from the series of impossible events she’d been confronted with. “What’s that supposed to mean? How am I supposed to-”

Before she could interrogate it any further, there was a crash behind her. When she turned to see what had made the noise, she was met with another impossible event.

There was a bear looming over her.

That was already bad enough, but this wasn’t just any bear. It was huge, the top of its head level with the lamps of the streetlight, and it had giant, wicked looking red claws that jutted out from its paws unnaturally, clearly too large to ever be retracted and too curved to be walked on easily. Amplifying this unnatural effect were its eyes, sunk deep into its face and glowing with a sinister red light that matched its claws. The same light came from the plethora of spikes jutting out of its body, covering its back and dotted randomly on its limbs. On its forehead was a collection of red points of light, more than a dozen in total of varying brightnesses, arranged in a familiar shape.

As Nico stared at it helplessly, frozen in horror and shock, it leaned forward and roared at her.

This couldn’t be real. She’d been hit by the meteorite and was hallucinating from the head trauma, right? There was no way that she was talking to something that looked like a stuffed animal designed by someone who’d never actually seen any real animals, there was no way that she was dressed up like someone on their way to a costume contest, and there was _definitely_ no way that there was actually a giant monster bear about to kill her.

The bear clearly disagreed. Rearing back slightly, it raised a massive paw and swiped down at her, ready to stain its claws with an entirely different shade of red.

Was this it? Was this how she died?

No, she decided. This was not how she died. She _refused_ to be killed in this ridiculous fashion, just when her dreams were finally coming true. Acting on her first instinct, she rolled to the side, diving out of the way of the attack even though it was far too late to avoid it now.

It worked better than she expected. As the massive paw cleaved through the air where she’d just been, the bear’s claws glancing off the concrete and setting off sparks, she practically flew to the side, springing off the ground like she’d been fired out of a cannon. Something was strange. Her body felt… light. Not that she wasn’t light normally- her exact weight, of course, was an idol’s secret, but even when she over-indulged on sweets she didn’t exactly strain the bathroom scale- and of course, her legs were fairly strong from her rigorous exercise routine. But she didn’t remember being able to leap ten feet from a standing position, let alone travel that distance in only a second or two.

The bear didn’t seem to have expected it either, drawing back its paw in mild confusion and giving Nico a look that suggested that it was trying to figure out why she wasn’t a bloody streak on the sidewalk yet.

“Use your new powers to fight the constellion!” The small furry creature was yelling again, and Nico glanced over at it, still not entirely sure how to react to the fact that it could even exist, let alone talk.

“New powers? Con what? What are you even-”

Today wasn’t her day for getting answers, it seemed. The bear seemed to have come to the conclusion that the best way to resolve the mystery of how Nico was still on piece was make sure she wasn’t, and was on all fours lumbering towards her in an awkward charge that looked no less deadly for its clumsiness. Nico kicked off the ground, trying to leap back, and found herself rocketing into the air, effortlessly clearing the height of the bear as it charged past her, skidding to a halt and whirling around looking for its disappearing prey.

Something was _definitely_ different with her body. As she floated down to a landing that was far too soft for the height she reached, Nico stared down the increasingly angry looking bear.

“Fight back!” the small creature called, and Nico looked at it in disbelief.

“ _How_?” she asked incredulously. Was this little furball about to throw her a rocket launcher?

“Hit it!” it said, as naturally as if it was suggesting she close a door by pulling on the handle.

Looking at her strange gloves again as the bear lowered its head and started another charge, Nico hesitantly balled her hand into a fist.

Something was definitely different. And whatever the little creature yelling advice was, it seemed to know more about what was going on than she did. Nico wasn’t sure she _trusted_ it, exactly, but… maybe doing what it said was a good idea.

As the bear loped towards her, Nico stepped to the side at the last minute, pivoting smoothly and stepping back but not jumping. As the bear pulled itself out of its charge, shifting its weight towards her and and starting to rear back for another swipe, Nico took a deep breath, drew her arm back, and punched it square in the nose as hard as she could.

The first thing she felt was the impact rippling up her arm. It reminded her of the time she’d tried to break a branch by hitting it against a tree, only to find out that both were a lot sturdier than she’d expected. But unlike that time, the feeling of impact wasn’t backed up by a jolt of pain, and this time she seemed to have come out on top of the collision. The bear shot backwards like it had been hit by a truck, crashing into a wall with enough force to rattle the  metal spikes on top of it and send hairline cracks through the concrete. The bear roared in pain as it fell to the ground with another thump.

Nico looked at her hand in disbelief, hardly believing that she was the one who’d done that.

The bear, it seemed, was down but not out. It was struggling to its feet, nearly foaming at the mouth with rage as it let out a much more intimidating roar, sending flecks of spittle flying and barreling towards her with a surprising burst of speed.

 _Okay, Nico, you can do this._ Nico thought, clenching her fists again and standing her ground. _This is all just a crazy dream. You fell asleep on the way home and started dreaming about aliens and bears and whatever else your brain half remembered from shows your siblings were watching on TV while you were doing homework._

As the bear moved to tackle her, claws outstretched, Nico threw an uppercut, catching it under its chin and sending it flying into the air. This time, however, her victory wasn’t so clean. As it flew upwards, it flailed at her with its leg, and one of the spikes slashed across her chest. Nico winced at the pain, glancing down in horror and expecting to see her torso sliced open. But as much her chest suddenly ached, there didn’t seem to be any wound at all, her clothing undamaged and no hint of blood trickling down the inside.

When the bear crashed back down to earth, Nico was ready for it. Not giving it a chance to try another charge, she dash over to where it was struggling to stand and delivered a vicious kick to its forehead, hoping that this time it would _stay_ down.

There was a bright flash, and it let out another roar as the points of lights on its forehead glowed so intensely that Nico had to squint. Then, all of a sudden, it disintegrated, like a burnt out log that collapsed into ashes and blew away at the lightest touch. Where there had once been a giant bear, there was now just a rapidly dwindling pile of dust that seemed to be fading even faster than the wind was blowing it away.

Nico slumped to her knees as the weight of how close she’d come to death hit her all at once. What on earth had she been thinking, trying to fight something like that? And how on earth had she _won_?

“Congratulations, Nightshade! You’ve defeated your first constellion!” The bizarre living toy was talking again, and apparently had taken to time to fly over to her, landing in front of her and giving her an enthusiastic thumbs up.

“Constellion?” Nico managed, baffled. Her pulse was racing and adrenaline was still pumping through her. Too many impossible things were happening. She couldn’t even figure out where to start. “What’s- what even- _what_?”

“The constellions are monsters,” The creature said. “Created by evil aliens called The Shadow. They seek to take over Earth by sowing chaos on the planet, so that no one can resist their invasion!”

It extended a tiny three fingered hand to her. Nico hesitated and then extended a finger cautiously. The creature grasped and shook it vigorously. “My name is Puck,” it said, bowing slightly. “I’m from a race of aliens that are trying to stop The Shadow. We are too weak to fight the constellions ourselves, but we possess powerful magic. Using that, we can empower humans to fight them. And you, Nightshade, have been chosen as our greatest hero- our Dazzling Warrior!”

“My name is Nico, not Nightshade,” Nico said, crossing her arms. She might not know what was going on, but she was damn sure of who she was, if nothing else. “And why does it have to be me that fights them? I might be the future queen of the idol world, and _highly_ talented, but I’m still just a highschooler. Besides, I’m too busy to be a ‘dazzling warrior’. Find someone else. Maybe someone who’s an actual fighter and isn’t busy making her debut.”

“No!” Puck said vehemently, suddenly flying close to Nico’s face. She drew back in surprise, half at his sudden proximity but just as much at the conviction in his voice. “It can only be you! Not everyone has the potential to become a hero, and not everyone can wield the power of Nightshade.Only Nightshade can save the earth, and you’re the only one who can be Nightshade.”

Given any other set of circumstances, and Nico wouldn’t have believed any of it. The earth, in danger from an alien invasion, and she was the only one who could stop them, by becoming some kind of hero with a goofy name? It was like something out of a children’s TV show. But here she was, with strength that she shouldn’t have, in an outfit she hadn’t put on, and an ache in her chest that reminded her she’d just fought a monster. It wasn’t some shady guy with a camera telling her this, but a talking bat-squirrel-ferret-fairy... _thing_ that could both talk and fly, and right now seemed to be hovering without actually using its wings.

“Are you _sure_ no one else can do this?” Nico pleaded, but when Puck shook his head, she wasn’t surprised.

“Well…” she said reluctantly. “I guess if the earth is at stake, I don’t really have a choice…”

And with that less than eager agreement, Nico started her third life: the life of Dazzling Warrior Nightshade.

And she still hadn’t started her homework yet.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of Dazzling Warrior Nightshade. If you've been reading my stuff for a while, you've probably heard of HikariHawkeye, who does a lot of betaing for me. Well, today she released the demo of her visual novel, Magic by the Kilowatt. It's a story of a group of LGBT magical girls confronting and trying to live with their traumas, and it's really good. From the itch.io page:
> 
> "Magic by the Kilowatt, or MagiKilo for short, is a kinetic visual novel currently in development. It's structured into twelve different short episodes, with the first three being released as a demo with non-final art assets.
> 
> This is a magical girl story about coping with trauma and mental illness that I wrote to help myself heal. I shared some short stories of the characters with friends, and got a lot of support and encouragement to make this an actual thing. So now it's an actual thing and you can play it! Thank you friends!"
> 
> If you enjoyed this and want more magical girls, please please check out MagiKilo. The demo is available on itch.io (https://cure-hikari.itch.io/magikilo-demo) and the patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/MagiKilo.


	2. Constellions and Camomile

Nico learned a lot more about her powers over the next few weeks. The main one was something close to super strength. When she was Nightshade, she was stronger, faster, and more agile than normal. On top of that, her outfit was magically protective, reducing what should be fatal blows to bruises and scrapes.

Most interesting, though, was her ability to travel through shadows.

If she stepped into a shadow, she could sink into it and leap to any other shadow large enough to cover her nearby. She wasn’t completely sure about the range, but it was pretty long, and she could travel to another shadow as soon as she finished the first jump, letting her zip halfway across the city in a manner of minutes once she got the hang of it.

It was an ability that she sorely needed. Unlike the bear, which had practically dropped into her lap, most of the “constellions” as Puck called them weren’t so obliging. They’d show up at random in the city, and Puck would demand that she drop everything and rush over to stop them.

Wanting to avoid his nagging wasn’t the only reason for her urgency, though. The constellions didn’t start wrecking things the second they appeared, but it didn’t take long for them to start smashing whatever was in reach, crushing cars and toppling lamp posts, breaking windows and savaging doors. The one saving grace was their apparent lack of interest in chasing people down- they seemed to just to destroy whatever was closest, leaving bystanders to flee as they busied themselves with property damage.

At first, the fights didn’t go too well. They were long, protracted affairs, that Nico left limping and battered, nursing a collection of cuts and bruises. Her schedule had already been strained before and now with this problem taking up her time, not to mention the time she took carefully concealing the injuries that weren’t hidden under her clothes, it was slipping into decided unsustainable territory. She was falling further behind in classes, having trouble finishing her homework, and, even more troubling, starting to be late for practices. It wasn’t something she could afford to do this early in her career- the producers weren’t going to have much patience for a new talent, and if she got seen as having a bad attitude or being unreliable, she could be thrown out as “not worth the hassle”.

Thankfully, fighting came naturally to her. After she had a few fights under her belt, she started to get the hang of combat, defeating the constellions faster and more cleanly, weaving under swipes and ducking under guards to dispatch the monsters without a scratch. She was even _saving_ time now, since whenever she was running late she always had the option leap through the shadows. Puck was less than amused by her using her powers outside of battle, but Nico didn’t care. If he was going to demand her time to save the world, he could pay her back in time.

With her travel time almost entirely eliminated, Nico found more and more extra moments in her days. She had time to study in time that she would have normally used walking place to place, and no longer had to worry about missing trains. She stopped being late for practice, and the extra time studying helped her catch up in school.

Just when she when it seemed like she might honestly be able to juggle all three of her lives successfully, a new complication appeared.

Queen Camomile.

* * *

It all started with a seemingly normal incident. On the way home from school, Puck had called to her about a constellion.

Puck speaking to her in her head was the most unsettling of the new powers that being Nightshade had granted her. Sure, he _claimed_ that it was an entirely voluntary link and he could only hear what she consciously directed at him, but having a weird little furball in her head wasn’t Nico’s idea of privacy. Who knew what stray thoughts he was picking up?

‘ _Nightshade! Trouble!’_

His standard greeting was, as usual, followed by an address, and Nico glanced around the street for anyone looking. Careful not to draw any attention, she slipped into the gap between a couple of buildings and started her transformation.

It was a slightly more involved process than it had been the first time. When Puck first taught her how to do it, she’d been skeptical that he was even telling the truth.

“I’m not going to dance for you, just transform me,” she’d said flatly, crossing her arms. “If you want to see me dance that much just come watch one of my practices, you little creep.”

“I assure you, Nightshade, I don’t have any ulterior motives,” Puck had insisted. “I can’t just transform you. You have the power of Nightshade now, not me. You transformed automatically the first time because you’d only just gained the power, but from now on you have to activate it yourself.”

“By _dancing_.”

“I don’t know why you keep saying that,” Puck said crossly. “I didn’t say anything about dancing. You just have to tap your bracelets together to a rhythm while stepping back and forth to the same beat.”

“That’s a dance!” Nico protested. She sighed in frustration. “If this doesn’t work and you made me do this as a joke, I’m going to stuff you down the throat of the next constellion we see.”

But it had worked, and it was working now as Nico swayed from side to side, summoning her bracelets. Those she could bring out just by thinking about it. Puck claimed that they were a “focus” that allowed her to bring out the power of Nightshade that lurked within her. Nico still wished that she could just think the entire costume onto herself, but apparently that “wasn’t how it worked”.

As the quiet “ting” of the bracelets colliding filled Nico’s ears, they started to glow, and a stream of darkness dotted with twinkling lights poured out of them like a river reflecting the stars. The stream, directed by some gravity that defied conventional physics, swirled around Nico, wrapping her in darkness until Nico was silhouetted completely, like a stencil cut out of the world revealing the night sky behind it.

Then the darkness receded, swirling inwards to form her outfit. Ruffles puffed out of the shadowy mass and solidified into a skirt. The darkness flowing down her legs and arms hardened into her boots and gauntlets. And on her face, it consolidated into a feathered mask.

The mask was another one of her powers. According to Puck, even if “her own mother” looked at her from “an inch away”, Nico would still be completely unrecognisable as long as the mask was intact. It wasn’t a claim that Nico was in a hurry to test, but once or twice she’d noticed someone she recognised at the sit of one of the attacks, and so far none of them had yelled out her name in surprise. So hopefully the mask’s magic was working just as well as advertised.

Once the transformation finished, Nico stepped into a shadow (it wasn’t hard to find one big enough in an alley like this, where practically the whole place was shadow) and started towards the address she’d been given. Once again, she gave silent thanks for at least something about this arrangement being convenient. She had practice in an hour and a half. Imagine if she’d had to take a _bus_ to where the monster was.

Many jumps later, and far before any bus she could have found would have made it two blocks, Nico emerged from a shadow downtown and scanned the area for the constellion. It wasn’t hard to find. A pure white lion, complete with the red spikes Nico had come to expect from constellions, was in the center of the plaza, roaring at the fleeing crowds as it crushed a bench underfoot. While red spikes were normal for constellions, this one had complimented the normal assortment of random spikes with a ball of huge spikes on its tail, turning it into a living mace. When it turned to face Nico, she could see that long, thing spines that looked to be the same as spikes were woven into its mane.

“Quake in fear, monster!” Nico called, readying her gauntlet. “Dazzling Warrior Nightshade, the world’s greatest magical girl, is here to defeat you!”

Alright, so maybe she was the world’s _only_ magical girl, but she was still good at it, so she deserved the title of greatest. If anyone wanted to argue, _they_ could take over this fight.

The lion didn’t seem impressed. It leapt at her, claws outstretched and grasping for her. Before, maybe that would have startled her, or scared her, but now all she saw was how open it was leaving itself to counter-attack. Leaping to the side, Nico flew feet first at a nearby wall, kicking off it as soon as her feet touched the brick. Having already avoided the attack, when she flew back towards the lion its mace-like tail was too far away, and its claws and fangs had already passed, leaving nothing but a wide expanse of vulnerable side. Nico delivered a brutal kick, backed by her momentum from jumping off the wall, and sent the creature flying into a crumpled heap.

“Ha. That barely took any time at all,” she preened, strutting over to deliver a finishing blow.

That was when she found out that she’d been wrong about two things.

The first thing she was wrong about was thinking that this was going to be a quick and easy fight. As she approached the monster, something slammed into her back, and a sudden intense feeling like her back had been set on fire arced through her. Yelping in pain, Nico instinctively rolled into the lion’s shadow and sunk into it, leaping away to safety to see what had hit her. Was there a second constellion? They’d always come one by one before, and she’d certainly never felt anything like THAT from a monster attack. It was like being hit with a fireball.

When she emerged from another shadow at a safe distance to examine the scene, she’d expected to see another hulking monster. What she saw searching behind the lion in confusion for her was nothing like that.

Because the second thing she’d been wrong about was being the world’s only magical girl.

Or maybe magical girl wasn’t the right term. After all, in the shows Nico used to watch, that was something only the heroes were called, and if this mystery woman was going to randomly attack someone who was in the middle of trying to save the city, then clearly she was a villain.

She was a stark contrast to Nico in a lot of ways. While Nico was dressed in trim dark clothing, this mysterious new girl was clad in a flowing green gown that looked like was made of leaves, sharply contrasting her red hair. Not just any leaves, though- the dress gave the impression of being like a living forest, shifting and rustling with every turn she made in her search. Her legs and feet were completely bare, a fact that didn’t seem to matter much since she appeared to be floating six or so inches above the ground. She didn’t have any gauntlets or gloves, but unlike Nico she wasn’t empty handed. She was holding a staff. Not a piece of gnarled wood curled in on itself, like most staves Nico had since in picture boks about wizards, but a fresh branch with leaves sprouting off it. Oddly, it seemed to be completely lacking any point where it had been cut or torn from a tree, almost like it had grown by itself from the center, or like it was a sapling that had absorbed its own roots and branches without leaving any sign they’d ever been there.

The one similarity between the mystery woman and Nico was that they were both masked, but while Nico’s mask was a flat black and simple in design, the mystery woman’s mask was ivory white, ornately decorated with gold trim and engraving. It like something worn at a masquerade ball, expensive looking and showing off the talent of its creator.

Finally finished with her search, the mystery woman seemed satisfied that Nico was gone and started floating towards the constellion, holding out her staff. It started to glow with an eerie green light.

‘ _Nightshade!’_ Puck exclaimed. ‘ _You have to stop her! She might heal the constellion!’_

‘ _She’s working with The Shadow?’_ Well, that confirmed it. She really _was_ a villain.

It did seem like she was doing something to the constellion. Whether she was trying to heal it, or strengthen it, or something else entirely, Nico couldn’t tell, but she was definitely doing _something._ Raising her staff, she began to murmur something Nico couldn’t make out, and the glow intensified. More concerning, the constellion started to glow as well.

‘ _Attack, Nightshade!’_ Puck said, his voice panicky. ‘ _Stop her! Immediately!’_

‘ _Alright, alright, I’m going…’_ Nico grumbled. Honestly, she was little reluctant. Fighting monsters was one thing, but another person?

On the other hand, clearly this woman didn’t have any issue fighting _her_. She could still remember the pain of whatever she’d been hit with in the back.

Resolved, she darted through shadows to a little ways behind the woman and charged, trying to stay quiet enough not to give herself away. She wouldn’t go all out at first, just give her a little bit of a test hit. Hopefully she wouldn’t hurt her _too_ much.

As it turned out, her consideration was wasted. Right before she struck home, the woman spun around like she had eye in the back of her head and threw up her staff. Nico’s fist bounced off empty air in front of her like she’d hit a brick wall.

The force of the blow had still done something though, as the woman slid backwards from the impact.

“Just like a villain, to try to sneak attack me!” The woman yelled, straightening up. “I, Queen Camomile, will stop you, and put an end to your evil!”

“Evil? Villain?” Nico asked incredulously, crossing her arms. “You sneak attacked me first! You’re the villain here, and the beautiful Dazzling Warrior Nightshade is going to make you see stars!”

Queen Camomile let out a disdainful snort of amusement.

“‘See stars’? Was that supposed to be an intimidating one-liner?” she sneered, and Nico glared at her.

“Sorry, miss ‘Queen’,” she said. “Some of us have better things to do with their lives other than sitting around and excitedly writing down all the lines they’re going to use on their arch nemesis!”

“I-I did no such thing!” Camomile protested, flushing red. Her denial wasn’t very convincing, but either way the accusation had thrown her off guard, and Nico took the opportunity to dash in for another blow. If she was decisive and aggressive, maybe she could end this fight quickly.

* * *

As it turned out, she could _not_ finish the fight quickly.

Camomile, it seemed, had rather different powers to Nico. She didn’t show any sign of being able to match Nico’s super strength or agility, and as far Nico could tell, she couldn’t teleport, through shadows or otherwise. What she did have was magical shields, ranged attacks, and, oh, right, _the ability to fly_.

Their battle was immensely frustrating. Camomile, with all the lack of honor you’d expect from a villain, seemed perfectly happy to float out of Nico’s reach and lob fireballs at her. Nico mostly managed to dodge them, but when one grazed her, the same intense pain from earlier spread through her body. Even when Nico managed to lure Camomile close enough to jump to, or teleported to the top of a building to manage a leap at her from high ground, her fists just bounced harmlessly off one of Camomile’s shields.

Just when Nico was starting to seriously worry about how long she could keep this up, Camomile started to retreat.

“This isn’t over!” she yelled, flying away. “I’ll get you next time, Nightshade!”

“How can you claim not to be villain?! Only villains say things like that, Camomile!” Nico yelled after the retreating figure, but it was no good. Camomile had already ducked behind a building and vanished entirely from sight.

‘ _Why is she retreating? Is this a trick?’_ Nico asked Puck.

Puck made a noise of disagreement.’ _I don’t think so. She probably ran out of energy. It hasn’t come up for you, because you only really use much energy when you’re hit and you’re a good fighter, but the transformation only has so much power. Once you deplete it all, you’ll untransform. Her powers must drain her energy much more quickly, so she’s retreating while she can still fly.’_

‘ _Why do you know how her powers work?’_ Nico asked, startled.

‘ _...Her powers are familiar. I suspect that she’s been given her powers by another one of my kind. One who does not have the best interests of Earth at heart. Most likely... someone involved with the constellions.’_

Nico frowned, momentarily considering chasing after Camomile. She’d seen what direction she went in, after all, and her flight wasn’t so fast that Nico couldn’t follow her through the shadows.

A roar from behind her reminded that Camomile’s intervention had stopped her from finishing off the constellion. Which appeared to have recovered when it was left alone.

Great.

By the time she’d defeated the monster again, more than an hour had passed since it first appeared. What was supposed to be a quick elimination had turned into a slog, all thanks to Camomile’s interference, and what should have been an evening where she had spare time became another night where she was going to be strained to not fall behind.

Stepping into a shadow and zipping away, Nico resolved that next time she saw Camomile, she was going to make her pay for this.

And now _she_ was sounding like a villain.

* * *

Even despite the fighting, and the new wrinkle of Camomile, who continued to cause trouble from that day onward, Nico was managing. She wasn’t exactly sleeping as much as she’d like, and there was no chance of her getting in the top ten of on any exams, but she was holding it together. She wasn’t jeopardizing her career, and she wasn’t doing so badly in school that she risked being kicked out.

She just had to keep it up until the end of the year. Once she graduated, she wouldn’t have to run herself ragged trying to keep up with school, and she could focus entirely on her career. She might go to college _eventually,_ but you didn’t need to be young and beautiful to hole yourself up in some dorm room and study, so it only made sense to follow her idol career first. And sure, it would still be a challenge to run around saving the city while she was off being a successful idol, but she was pretty confident she could manage if she didn’t have to keep trying to find moments to study algebra. Plus, this magical girl stuff came with a time limit, right? In all the magical girls shows Nico had heard of, there were never any magical OLs running around. Once she was out of highschool, the end of that whole affair couldn’t be far off.

Obviously, given all that, it would be a terrible idea to start a relationship with someone at this point. Even if she wasn’t going to have to end it or hide it because of the idol love ban, she just didn’t have the time for it.

Nico, it had to be said, did not always make the best decisions.


	3. Lunches and Maki

It started off with a confession, as many high school relationships do.

It was far from the first time someone had confessed to Nico. She was an idol, after all, and while she might not be a household name ( _yet_ ), some people had seen the various variety shows or promotional events she’d managed to take part in, and she had a fanbase among people who liked to find up-and-coming new talent.

Turning down those kind of confessions was easy. Frankly, Nico suspected that most of them would be almost disappointed if she accepted. They were idol fans, after all, and the love ban was an open secret. None of them could really expect her to throw away her career for them, and they’d probably didn’t even want her to. It was just one sided affection they wanted to tell her about, and then they could feel brave for “trying”. Besides, a relationship based on loving her as idol was doomed from the start. They weren’t really confessing to _her_. They were confessing to the perfect ideal that she played on stage- a persona, not a person.

This time, though, was a little different. The person who had just said “I like you” and was currently standing with their hands clenched, staring at the ground and blushing furiously, wasn’t an idol fan. It wasn’t someone Nico barely recognized who couldn’t have spoken more than two words to her and yet claimed that they knew her well enough to be in love with her.

It was Maki Nishikino.

* * *

Nico had heard of Maki Nishikino a long time before she met her. She was one of those girls that people talked about. An excellent student, a natural beauty, and a talented pianist. She was from a good family, too, apparently next in line to inherit a chain of hospitals. From her almost regal bearing to her striking red hair, everything about Maki Nishikino stuck out.

Of course, that meant she was the kind of girl who attracted obviously fake rumours. For example: apparently, she went straight home after school. Rather than assuming that the girl who scored first in every exam was _studying_ , the rumour mill would have you believe that she was doing compensated dating, or was secretly a delinquent, or any number of other absurd accusations that ranged from “implausible” to “impossible”. It was transparent jealousy, nothing different than the people who tried to dig up idol scandals The closest thing they had to evidence was that people had seen Maki in town from time to time in places that wouldn’t be on her way home. But since they’d never seen her _with_ anyone, that hardly seemed to be much evidence of anything untoward.

For any other first year, that would have been all Nico ever knew about her. Nico wasn’t anti-social, exactly, but given how busy she was with her idol aspirations, she didn’t exactly have many friends. She barely knew most of the people in her own class, let alone people in entirely different years. She did have one friend, though. Nozomi.

Despite calling her a friend, Nico often found Nozomi irritating. She was smug, she loved fortune telling and forced Nico to be her guinea pig, and she was motherly to the point of meddling. Still, she had stuck with Nico through thick and thin. Even at Nico’s lowest points, Nozomi had encouraged her. When she’d failed her first audition, Nozomi had been there. Without her support, Nico might not have ever made it as an idol.

Not that she’d ever tell her that. She was already smug enough.

And that was how Maki ended up in Nico’s life, months before Puck entered the picture. Apparently, when Nozomi was growing up, Maki and her had been neighbours, and played together as children. So when Maki started going to their highschool, it was inevitable that eventually Nozomi would try to introduce Nico to her.

Nico didn’t mind that, exactly. She was good at smiling and politely saying hello to people, after all. It was an essential talent for an idol. What she _did_ mind, however, was Nozomi’s plan for the three of them to eat lunch on the roof together. Lunch was one of the few chances Nico got at school to catch up on studying, and the idea of wasting half it clambering up to the roof so that some first year could distract her from her work didn’t appeal.

At first, she’d resisted, but Nozomi always seemed to figure out some way to get what she wanted. And so, less than a week after she first suggested the idea, Nozomi had half blackmailed, half bribed Nico into coming to the roof with her.

Nico had managed to insist on one concession though. She would come to the roof as long as Nozomi let her work. Nozomi had smirked insufferably at that. “I promise I won’t interrupt your work,” she said, phrasing her words carefully. She thought she was _so_ clever. _I_ won’t interrupt your work. Oh, but when I introduce you to Maki, the two of you will hit it off so instantly, and then you’ll _voluntarily_ not study to chat with the two of us.

It wasn’t going to work.

And for a while, it didn’t. Nozomi introduced the two of them, they exchanged stiff pleasantries, and then Nico proceeded to ignore both Maki and Nozomi. True to her word, Nozomi never attempted to rope Nico into conversation with her and Maki. Maki, for her part, seemed to regard Nico with distrust and was more than happy not to include her in conversations. Well, that was fine by her. Let Maki think what she wanted.

It was almost _too_ easy. Given how willing Nozomi was to settle for the current state of affairs, Nico suspected part of the reason she had pushed so hard for the arrangement was that it allowed her to make sure that Nico was eating while still having someone to talk to. It was the kind of sly scheme that Nozomi would come up with, and as was usual for those schemes, it was impossible for Nico to prove it. And once being Nightshade was dumped in her lap, she had a lot more important things to worry about than Nozomi’s plotting. Constellions never seemed to attack during the school day, thankfully, so Nico being watched like a hawk during lunch didn’t much matter, and whatever Nozomi was up to it probably wasn’t going to destroy the city. So let her do what she wanted. Nico had more important things to worry about, so it was just Nozomi watching her to make sure she didn’t skip lunch, then who cared?

Eventually, though, the situation changed. One day, Nico finished a piece of homework earlier than she’d expected. Worse, she’d left her books back in the classroom, so she didn’t have anything else to review, and didn’t have enough time to go back and grab them before break ended. She pretended to be reviewing her answers again, but Nozomi noticed instantly.

“Have a moment, Nico?” she asked innocently, and Nico shot her a glare. Of course she’d be able to see through that right away. If there was one thing she hated about Nozomi, it was how perceptive she was.

“...Yeah, alright, fine,” she grumbled, caught out. “What are you two chatting about?”

“Oh? Finally acknowledging our existence, Miss Idol?” Maki said snidely.

Normally, Nico would let that sort of comment slide. But something in Maki’s tone and the superior look she had on her face rubbed Nico the wrong way. What did _she_ know? Making fun of Nico for studying just because not everyone could be born rich and smart? Like she had any idea what Nico was dealing with. Would she be so haughty if _she’d_ been slapped around by a giant fox monster yesterday?

“I didn’t see you starting any conversations, little Miss Trust Fund,” Nico snapped back.

Maki smirked. “I don’t think _I’m_ the little one.”

Nico hated her already.

* * *

Unfortunately, Nozomi didn’t let this new shift from disinterest to active dislike stop her efforts to make the two of them become friends. Rather than letting Nico stay in the classroom and study in peace, she started to escalate her attempts to get the two of them to talk. She’d make needling little comments to bait Nico into responding, at which point she could drag her into conversation without having interrupted Nico, or start conversations she _knew_ Nico wouldn’t be able to stay quiet about. Even more sinister, she’d started helping out Nico with homework juuuust infrequently enough that Nico couldn’t plan for it and juuuust well enough to have her finish at awkward times. Then, as soon as she’d distracted Nico from her work and gotten her engaged in conversation, she’d contrive some reason why she had to go somewhere and leave Nico and Maki alone together.

“So why do _you_ put up with this, anyway?” Nico asked, after the third time Nozomi had practically taped them together to talk. “I know why Nozomi can talk me into these fun little chats, but couldn’t you just go talk to your other friends or something?”

Maki flinched. Usually, she had a comeback to everything, but this time she seemed reluctant to speak.

“...I don’t have any other friends,” she admitted sullenly, her glare daring Nico to make something of it.

But rather than the mockery Maki seemed to expect, Nico’s only response was confusion.

“What? Why not?” she asked, raising an eyebrow incredulously. “I know you’re not as busy as me, and you’re smart and attractive enough that I’m sure someone would overlook your terrible personality. Some people are into that aloofness junk.”

Maki gave her a dirty look. An entirely unwarranted one, as far as Nico was concerned. That was mostly a compliment, and entirely true.

“...The only people who talk to me are suckups who want to get in good with my family,” she said, looking off into the distance. “None of them are actually my friends, but I have enough people around me that I’m ‘popular’, so other people are intimidated and don’t talk to me.”

Nico fell silent for a moment.

“Huh,” she said finally, tilting her head. “Didn’t think _you_ of all people would understand.”

“What do you mean? Understand what?” Maki asked, frowning suspiciously.

Nico rolled her eyes. “Come on,” she said, crossing her arms. “I know you know who I am. The cute and talented idol Nico Nico Ni!”

She posed, and Maki twisted up her face into a look somewhere between revulsion and disdain.

Nico frowned at her reaction, but decided not to comment on it. “Anyway. Before I made it as an idol-”

“You still haven’t really-”

“- _before I successfully became an idol_ , _shut up_ , I didn’t really have any friends other than Nozomi. I tried to start an idol club at first, but in the end, no one else was really serious about it. All of them quit when they realized I actually wanted to become an idol, not just play around and pretend. Then, when I did make it, no thanks to any of them, everyone who saw me on stage or in interviews thought they already knew me.”

Like any of the people who came up to her acting like she knew them realized that she _did_ know them. That she remembered their faces turning away from her as she held out a leaflet in the snow.

“Either they think that they can make friends with the bubbly act I put on when I’m performing, or they just want to know someone famous, _or_ -” Nico pointed accusingly at Maki. “-they hate me on some kind of messed up principle before I even open my mouth, because they assume I’m looking down on them.”

Maki flushed red. “I didn’t assume that because you were an idol!” she protested. “You came here a dozen times looking like you thought it was a waste of your time and totally ignored me! Who _wouldn’t_ think you were stuck up?”

“I ignored you two because you _are_ a waste of my time,” Nico said bluntly, crossing her arms again. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“You just said I _would_ understand!” Maki snapped.

“I said you’d understand the other thing, not this!” Nico rubbed her temples. “Ugh, what I mean is you have time to just sit and chat during lunch, but that’s because you’re only a student. I’m a student _and_ an idol. I don’t _have_ that kind of time. Sitting here chatting like this is time I’m not spending studying. And I _need_ that time to make up for the all the evenings and weekends that I can’t study because I’m doing a concert, or an interview, or a variety show, or a photoshoot, or-”

Nico paused, stopping herself before she said “saving the city”.

“-or… something else,” she finished lamely, making a vague hand gesture.

“...I’m not _just_ a student,” Maki muttered under her breath.

“What?” Nico asked, unsure if she’d heard correctly. What, did she have a part time job or something?

“...Nothing. Never mind,” Maki said bruskly, clearly regretting even mentioning it. “Fine, whatever, you’re busy. It doesn’t mean you have to be rude about it.”

Nico snorted. “Rude? The instant I walked onto this rooftop with Nozomi you glared at me so hard I thought your eyeballs would pop out. I figured I was doing you a _favour_ by ignoring you.”

Maki frowned. “I-I just was worried that Nozomi was going to start only hanging out with people her own age,” she said defensively. “...I didn’t want to be left all alone.”

Her voice was quiet as she spoke the last part, and she didn’t meet Nico’s eye.

Nico sighed dramatically

“Well if you’re going to be so _pathetic_ about it, I guess the wonderful idol Nico Ni can show some beneviolence to her adorable kouhai,” she said with a practiced idol smile and a sugary tone.

Maki made a face and recoiled. “Gross. People actually like it when you talk like that?”

“What?! What’s wrong with that?” Nico demanded, leaning closer to Maki and glaring.

“Everything,” Maki said flatly, shooing her back. “Eat your stupid lunch, the bell’s going to ring soon.”

Nico made a “hmph” noise and turned away from Maki just in time for Nozomi to swoop back in with drinks. Shoot, she’d spent almost all the lunch break just talking instead of doing anything productive. Stupid Maki.

Still, it was nice to know a little more about her.

And maybe she wasn’t quite so bad after all.

* * *

From there, their relationship had become a little less cold.

They didn’t exactly become best friends, of course. Maki was still a stuck up jerk who didn’t appreciate Nico’s obvious idol talents, after all, and Nico wasn’t looking to let anyone get too close when she had a big secret to conceal. But she did at least say a quick hello to Maki before she started working, and she’d occasionally talk with her when she had a free moment. Granted, the conversations were perhaps slightly hostile, sometimes, but they did talk of their own volition. It was an improvement over trying to ignore each other’s existence.

And however contentious their relationship might be, and however annoying Maki might be… Nico had to admit that there was some kind of bond forming there. Nico was basically never free on Sundays or holidays, but now and then she’d invite Maki to come with her when she needed to do shopping, or went to karaoke for voice training. They’d even started making each other lunch from time to time. The logic made sense, after all- Nico was a good chef, and the time it took to make an extra portion was negligible compared to the time that she saved not having to make anything on the days that Maki brought lunch (which she definitely didn’t cook herself, but what did Nico care?)

Nozomi, of course, had practically exploded with glee when she found that out.

“Oh, Niccochi,” she said, fake hurt. “You never make _me_ lunches.”

She sighed exaggeratedly. “When I introduced the two of you, I never imagined that you’d steal Nico away from me, Maki. I guess she likes younger women after all.”

Maki spluttered denials while Nico glared at Nozomi, flushing red.

The problem was, Nozomi wasn’t completely off the mark. Nico did have a bit of a crush on Maki.

She might be abrasive and a little condescending sometimes, but she was sincere, smart, strong-willed, and fun to be with when she wasn’t infuriating to be with. And even sometimes when she was.

All that said, though, Nico definitely had thought that those feelings were just a fleeting attachment. She was fairly sure the chance of her feelings being returned was slim to none, and besides, how was she supposed to go out with someone when she couldn’t even tell them where she needed to keep disappearing to save the city? So she’d just tucked those feelings away and tried not to let them sway her too much. With varying degrees of success.

And that was when Maki had confessed to her.

 


	4. Confessions and Confusion

When Maki had said she wanted to talk to Nico after school, she’d had a few guesses about what it could be. Complaints about Nozomi was a tempting prospect, considering the only other time they talked regularly was on the roof where Nozomi would overhear. A slightly more likely (if less satisfying) option was that she had a question about Nozomi she wanted to keep secret- asking about a gift or something, although Nozomi’s birthday had already come and gone. Or it could have been something as simple as a question she didn’t have to time to ask at lunch. But a _confession_? Only last week, Maki had called her “a sorry excuse for an idol and an even worse student”, and now, here she was, saying that she wanted to go out with her?

It was almost surreal.

“Is this a joke?”

She blurted it out with thinking. Almost as soon as the words left her mouth, Nico realized she’d made a terrible mistake. Maki’s face fell, and she clenched her fists even tighter, her knuckles turning white.

“Wait, I didn’t mean-”

Before Nico could even finish her sentence, Maki had spun on her heel and was off like a shot. Nico’s explanations died unspoken on her lips as she watched Maki sprint towards the gates with an arm over her face.

 _Great job, Nico. Your crush confesses to you and you_ ask if she’s joking _?_ _Idiot._

Still, Nico was confident in her fitness. Even with this head start, she could catch up to Maki and explain what she’d meant. Maki might be a little mad at her messing up the confession, but surely her relief at having her feelings returned would overwhelm that, right? But as soon as she took a single step in pursuit, a voice rang out in her head.

‘ _Nightshade!’_

No.

‘ _There’s-’_

No no no-

‘ _-a constellion!’_

No!

‘ _Can’t this wait ten minutes?’_ Nico asked desperately, knowing the answer.

‘ _No, Nightshade!’_ Puck insisted. ‘ _You must hurry! The city is in danger!’_

Watching Maki round the corner out of sight, Nico let out of a growl of frustration, clenching her fists.

She had never been happy about being a magical girl, but she’d never hated it as much as she did at this very moment.

* * *

By the time Nico reached the latest constellion, it was already way too late to do anything about Maki’s confession. There was no way Maki was going to pick up a phone call from her after that, and Nico had no idea where she’d run off to. The damage was already done.

The monster this time was a giant sheep or goat or something. Nico didn’t care. Whatever it was, she was going to crush it. Right now, she could _really_ use a punching bag, and if that punching bag was _literally the source of her problem_ , all the better.

Stepping out of the alley, she clenched her fists and prepared to spring-

-only to be attacked immediately.

As soon as she saw the flash of light, Nico’s reflexes took over. She dove out of the way, rolling to her feet again and glaring up at the sky.

Obviously, it was Queen Camomile. And as usual, she was trying to stop Nico while the city was getting smashed up.

“You missed!” Nico yelled.

“Shut up! Just shut up!” Queen Camomile’s voice sounded hoarse for some reason as she lobbed another fireball. “Why do I have to deal with you today?!”

“That’s my line!” Nico yelled back. What she needed right now was some stress _relief_ , not the added stress of tangling with this stupid slippery jerk. They’d fought dozens of times now, and Nico could count the number of actual hits she’d landed on one hand. Camomille was just as reluctant to get close as their first fight, and Nico was still as unable to catch her as ever. No matter what tricks she tried, Camomile was always a step ahead, and the only reason Nico even came out on top was that she managed to dodge her attacks long enough for Camomile to run out of energy and retreat.

But it wasted time. While previously Nico had managed to mostly contain the damage the constellions were doing, when she was distracted by Camomile she couldn’t do anything about the current monster. Left unchecked, they rampaged around, knocking over lamp posts, crushing cars, and demolishing storefronts. Sometimes it was stores Nico liked, too. She was never going to forgive Camomile for getting her favourite cake shop wrecked.

Normally, Nico tried to catch Camomile in their little fights. Today, though, she didn’t care. She just wanted this over with. She’d play along and wear her out just like always, and then take out all her feelings on the sheep, then go home and cry.

But, of course, this was a day where nothing went right for Nico. It was more than two hours later when she finally dragged herself into an alley, the constellion defeated and Camomile nowhere to be seen.

Camomile had been operating on a new level of spite. Rather than fighting Nico head-on, she kept hiding herself, only popping back out to attack when Nico turned to fight the constellion itself. In the end, Nico had managed to just defeat the constellion without ever actually chasing off Camomile herself. With the monster defeated, Camomile finally left, but not before taking a few more potshots.

Nico wasn’t sure whether to be furious or despondent. Not only was Maki going to assume she didn’t make any effort to get into contact with her, since it wasn’t like she could call _now_ and explain that she’d been busy saving the city, this delay was _also_ going to mean she was going get behind on studying. Again. And if that wasn’t enough, she was so worn out and bruised that she wasn’t going to be able to practice her new routine tonight either.

All in all, it was a truly terrible day.

And she didn’t even have enough time to curl up in a ball and sulk about it.

* * *

Unsurprisingly, Maki wasn’t at lunch the next day.

Nico almost didn’t notice at first. She was working frantically throughout the entire break, only eating at Nozomi’s gentle insistence, but even with her mind occupied, her heart made its displeasure at Maki’s absence known.

 _It doesn’t matter._ Her head sternly informed her heart. _We don’t have time to deal with it right now._ She was too busy to worry about Maki and the confession. She was _always_ busy, but right now, she was even busier than normal. Camomile showing up had already thrown off her schedule, and losing most of an evening to this latest complication had pushed it too far. She couldn’t delay anything, she couldn’t afford to miss anything, and so her only option was to work herself to the bone until things slowed down. Every spare second between classes she had her nose in a book, to the point where she would have barely been able to trade words with Maki even if she _had_ seen her.

Well, that was a lie. No matter how busy she was, Nico knew that she’d have taken a break from what she was working on to beg forgiveness from Maki if she’d seen her. Even if it meant failing a class or two.

It took her more than a week to catch up again. Even then, the only reason she managed it was down to luck. An idol appearance had been rescheduled, leaving her with a free evening. Rather than getting some much needed sleep or relaxation, she took a deep breath, buckled down, and forced herself to keep working through the night. When she finally collapsed into bed, she’d made enough of a dent in her workload that she’d have enough time to take a break at lunch.

A short one, but it would be enough.

* * *

As soon as lunch started, Nico strode off towards the first year classrooms, ignoring Nozomi’s inquisitive look. As she walked through the halls, she fought the impulse to turn back. She’d decided to do this. She had to follow through. Whatever the outcome ended up being, she couldn’t just back out now and leave the situation as it was..

Stopping in the doorway to the classroom, Nico scanned the room. Maki’s distinctive hair made her easy to find- she was sitting at a corner desk, reading a book with an English title as she picked at her lunch.

“Maki!” she called out from the door, and Maki jumped as the other inhabitants of the classroom looked between Nico and Maki with undisguised curiosity. “Can we talk for a second?”

Maki glanced nervously at her classmates for a second before nodding curtly and striding past Nico into the hallway. It was a cheap tactic, and Nico knew it. By calling from the doorway and alerting the rest of the class, Maki couldn’t blow her off without piquing the interest of her gossipy classmates. But that didn’t matter. She needed to talk to Maki, regardless of how she managed it.

Maki lead her to a secluded area outside the school building. Once she stopped and turned to face her, Nico spoke.

“Look, about your conf-” Nico started, but Maki interrupted her.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted out, and then looked away for a moment before continuing.

“It… um, I… you were right,” Maki said, awkwardly. “It, uh, was a joke. I just thought- it’s not important. It wasn’t real, so like, you know, you don’t have to be all awkward around me or anything. I’m sorry I haven’t been coming to lunch lately, I was just busy with studying so I didn’t want Nozomi talking my ear off.”

The force of it hit Nico like a bullet. Somehow, Maki’s words managed to hurt more than being thrown through a plate glass window, and she could say that with the weight of experience behind it.

“O-oh,” she managed, struggling to stop her feelings showing on her face. Think of it like a performance. Paste on a smile, pretend nothing’s wrong, show the world the happy idol with no problems and hide everything else under that fake grin. “I guess that settles that then.”

“Y-Yeah,” Maki said.

“Well,” Nico said. “I still have _a ton_ of work to do, so I’m afraid this is all the time the fabulous Nico can spare you today! I’ll grace you with my presence again tomorrow at lunch, if you can tear yourself away from your adorable little first year finger painting exercises or whatever.”

Waving airily as Maki made a disgusted face, she sauntered off until she was sure she was out of earshot, then sat heavily against the wall, pulled her knees up to her chest, and let her tears fall.

Stupid. Of course Maki didn’t actually like her. Who could? Who would possibly like the actual Nico, not the Nico on stage?

That was the real reason she didn’t have any friends. That was real reason she turned down confessions. It wasn’t because she had no interest in people who didn’t see the real her. It was because she knew that as soon as they found out how awful she really was, they’d hate her anyway. Better to turn them away when they still thought she was worth dating. Maki probably just got dared by someone to do it. Just a joke. God, it was good thing she didn’t say yes. How mortifying would that have been?

“Nico?”

 _Shit_.

Nico looked up and saw Maki standing over her, looking worried.

“What? Maki? I-Isn’t your classroom the other direction?” Nico asked, hastily trying to wipe the tears away and shield her face.

Shit, shit, shit, Maki wasn’t supposed to see this.

“Why are you crying?” Maki asked, and Nico stubbornly turned her face away from Maki.

“I’m not crying,” she insisted, trying to stop her voice from wavering. “Why are you following me? Go back to your own stupid classroom. Leave me alone. Leave me out of your jokes.” _You’re saying too much, Nico, shut up._

Maki stared at her and dawning realization crossed her face, followed immediately by horror.

“Is it… is it because I said my confession was a joke?” she asked in a quiet voice. Her face held a swirl of emotions. Guilt was the obvious one. Worry. And a twinkle of something else. Was it hope?

No. Nico was projecting. The only thing Maki was hoping for was that she was wrong and Nico didn’t actually have any feelings that would make things awkward between them.

“No,” Nico said flatly. “And I’m not crying. Just go away, Maki.”

“Why are you always like this?” Maki snapped.

“Excuse me?” Nico said back, wiping her arm across her face one last time before glaring back at Maki.

Was _Maki_ seriously fucking angry right now? What right did _she_ have to be upset?

“Why am I always like _what,_ Maki?” she challenged. “Always not interested in your shitty excuses for jokes?”

“Always denying how you feel! Always refusing to trust me with anything, always refusing to share anything with me!” There were tears in Maki’s eyes now too. “You told me once that I could understand how you felt, and then you never even gave me a chance!”

“Well I was _wrong!_ ” Nico yelled, scrambling to her feet. “There’s no way you could ever understand me if this is who you really are!”

Maki recoiled, hurt written on her face. Nico was torn between regret and a desperate, vicious satisfaction. Lashing out like a wounded animal, the feeling of hurting the one who hurt her sated some primal need.

“If you’d make a joke like that…” she continued, looking fiercely into Maki’s eyes. “Then you’ll _never_ understand, and I’m glad I never confided anything in you for you to hurt me with.”

For the second time that day, she turned and started to walk away, not bothering to hide her desire to escape this time. Then she heard Maki call out from behind her.

“It wasn’t a joke!”

Nico froze in her tracks.

“It wasn’t a joke when I confessed to you,” Maki said, her voice miserable. “But then you asked if it was a joke, and I didn’t want you to be afraid of me, or disgusted by me, so I lied.”

Nico’s heart pounded. This emotional whiplash was just too much. She didn’t even know how to feel anymore. First it was real, then it was fake, then it was real? She felt like a leaf being buffeted in a storm.

“...I’m sorry. If you’re not comfortable around me anymore, I understand.” It was at this point that Nico realized she still hadn’t turned to face Maki, and that she hadn’t said anything in response. All Maki could see was her silent back.

“I can talk to Nozomi if you don’t w-”

“You’re so unfair,” Nico said, cutting Maki off with her voice shaking. “My heart isn’t a toy. You can’t keep just testing the waters by changing your mind before I even say anything.”

She turned to face Maki again, feeling tears pricking in the corner of her eyes. “Either actually confess or just… stop.”

Maki fidgeted for a moment in silence, then took a deep breath. “I like you, Nico. Will you go out with me?”

Nico glared at her for a moment. “...Not taking it back?” she asked, and Maki frowned.

“...No,” she said.

“Are you _sure?_ ” Nico asked.

“Ugh, why are you like this? Why do I like you?” Maki complained, and Nico rolled her eyes.

“I could ask the same thing,” Nico said, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Honestly, this is worst confession I’ve ever gotten.”

“Well excuse me for not bringing fancy roses, Miss I-” Maki paused for a moment. “...What do you mean, you could ask the same thing?”

“I like you too, idiot,” Nico said, blushing a little bit. Just a little bit. A reserved, demure, idol sort of blush. “So yes, I’ll go out with you.”

She paused for a moment. “...Just make sure you don’t tell anyone. I _am_ an idol, after all.”

And just like that, Nico stupidly picked up a fourth identity to add to her growing pile: Maki Nishikino’s girlfriend.


	5. Dates and Time

That evening, there was another monster attack. That was unusual enough, given how recent the last one had been. Usually there was a week or so between their appearance. Why that was, Nico had no idea. Puck wasn’t sure either, suggesting it might just take that long for The Shadow to make a new one.

But what was _really_ unusual was that Queen Camomile had gotten to the monster first.

Nico didn’t know how Camomile knew when the attacks were happening, but it was clear that she didn’t know too far in advance that a constellion was coming. And since Camomile couldn’t travel through the shadows, Nico was usually the first on the scene. Camomile was rarely far behind, though. Perhaps she did get forewarning and just liked to lie in wait.

Regardless, whether it was because she’d gotten there first this time or because she’d decided that ambushes weren’t working, this time Camomile was already there when Nico arrived.

Instantly, Nico could tell something was different. Instead of screaming and people fleeing, there was a crowd gathering and a low murmur of confused conversation as people milled about trying to get a closer look. Slipping to a shadow on top of a roof to avoid the crowds, Nico found what was drawing their attention.

Instead of attacking, the enormous spiked crab was standing dumbly in the middle of the square. Camomile was floating in midair next to it, her staff glowing brightly as waves of energy flowed over the passive beast. Exactly _what_ she was doing was a little more mysterious. Given that the constellion didn’t appear to be resisting, maybe Camomile was powering it up? Or maybe she was trying to steal its power for her own- Nico had never actually figured out why Camomile tried to stop her killing the monsters, since she didn’t seem to be summoning them and never attacked anyone herself.

Either way, waiting to find out was probably a bad idea. If the constellion or Camomile got any stronger, Nico might find herself hard pressed to deal with either of them.

“Hey Camomile!” she yelled, waving her arms to try and get Camomile’s attention. It seemed to work, as Camomile jumped a little and turned to face Nico, startled. Whatever she had been doing, breaking her concentration was enough to stop it. The constellion snapped out its docile state and clicked its pincers menacingly, swiping at a lamp post as people screamed and started running for cover. Luckily, they’d kept their distance while watching events unfold, so they were already out of the square before the constellion regained its bearings.

Camomile glared at Nico, but then, instead of hurling insults, she composed herself and drew herself up regally. “Hmph! Not even you can spoil my good mood today, Nightshade!” she called out, firing a volley of shots that Nico rolled into a shadow to dodge, jumping back down to street level.

“Oh? Something good happened to you? There really is no justice,” Nico called out, as Camomile whirled around to fire at her new position.

Camomile sniffed dismissively. “Someone as evil and violent as you wouldn’t be able to understand my happiness.”

“ _Evil_? _Me_? The beautiful and shining star of justice, Dazzling Warrior Nightshade?!” Nico had never been so offended. Where did Camomile get off? _She_ was the evil one, Nico was the good one!

Of course, as usual, Nico didn’t get the opportunity to beat some sense into her. As usual, she evaded. As usual, she shielded. As usual, she delayed. As usual, Nico barely had a second to spare to keep the monster in check while dealing with Camomile.

And as usual, another city block ended up in a much worse state than it had been that morning.

* * *

‘ _Nightshade, you have to beat them quicker!’_

It was half an hour later, and Nico was heading back home when Puck started to chastise her. Maybe he sensed that she was still in a good mood, despite the difficulties in the battle.

Nico rolled her eyes. ‘ _Easy for you to say, Puck.’_ she thought back sarcastically. ‘ _Queen Pain-in-the-ass_ _keeps delaying me.’_

There was no response from Puck. He never seemed to want to talk about Queen Camomile, for some reason. Nico suspected he just didn’t want to admit that he didn’t know why she was there fighting Nico.

Finally, after an oddly long pause, Puck spoke again.

‘ _Then you should hurry up and destroy her.’_

His voice was colder than normal, catching Nico off guard.

‘ _Destroy her?’_ Nico hadn’t really ever thought of going that far. She figured she’d beat her up a bit, unmask her, and then shoo her away. But destroy her? Was Nico supposed to just… hit her until she stopped moving? Would she turn to dust, like the constellions? Or would she leave a body? Both options seemed unappealing.

‘ _She’s probably one of The Shadow. She’s trying to kill you and your planet. Don’t you want to stop her?’_

‘ _Yeah, but…’_ It was easy to destroy monsters. They barely seemed able to think, they were clearly trying to hurt people, and they were obviously evil. Camomile, though, Nico had never seen trying to hurt a civilian. And she was obviously a sentient being, and probably human. Destroying her… didn’t that mean killing a person?

‘ _...Nevermind. Forget I said anything.’_ Puck said, clearly noticing her apprehension. ‘ _Just… stop her. However you can do it.’_ Puck abruptly disappeared from her mind, leaving Nico a little confused and a little dismayed as well.

Was her fight with Camomile going to become a deathmatch? Could she really bring herself to finish off another human? And why was Puck being so weird about the whole situation?

Opening the door with a sigh, Nico felt the last of her good mood drain away. Oh well. Homework awaited.

* * *

Nico tapped her foot impatiently and checked her watch for the fifth time in the last ten minutes.

Damnit, Maki _knew_ how busy she was. Why was she late for their date? It had been a nightmare even getting a few hours free, and now here she was _wasting_ it standing here waiting for Maki. She’d even shown up a little late herself, because of magical girl business, and yet her date was even later.

“Nico!” Nico turned to see Maki running up to her.

“What took you so long?” she demanded, as Maki fought to regain her breath.

“Sorry,” Maki managed between gasps. She looked tired, but despite being slightly disheveled from the run, she was still breathtaking. Nico had only ever seen her in uniform before, and now, seeing her in her casual clothes, she felt her heart beat faster. Of course a rich girl would dress nicely, but… her purple dress, white coat and effortlessly stylish scarf made her look like she’d walked out of a fashion magazine.

Unfair. Nico was a cute idol, she couldn’t be getting upstaged by some nerd who spent all her time on schoolbooks just because she happened to be taller and more mature looking.

“I was just-” Maki paused, considering and then sighed.

“...I’m sorry,” she said again. Clearly she’d decided that whatever her excuse was, it wasn’t worth mentioning. Maybe she’d overslept. Maybe she’d lost track of time reading a book. Or maybe she’d gotten lost.

“...Fine,” Nico said reluctantly. As much as she wanted to scold Maki more, wasting time interrogating her would just make them even later. “Let’s just go, then.”

Luckily, what counted as “unacceptably late” by Nico’s standards wasn’t quite “disastrously late”. While they didn’t make it to the movie on time, it turned out they hadn’t missed much. When they turned over their tickets and snuck quietly into the theatre, the previews were still playing. Even more luckily, they managed to find a pair of seats together. As the two of them settled into their seats, the previews came to a close and the main feature started.

Nico had been the one to pick the movie, since she’d put herself in charge of organising the date. Maybe that was weird, considering that Maki was the one who had asked _her_ out, but she figured that since her schedule was what they were working around, she might as well figure out the details. She’d ended up picking a movie that was getting a lot of good reviews, a romance about spies. It wasn’t her normal taste, but it seemed like sort of thing to watch on a date.

It turned out to be pretty engaging. Set in a fictional war, a spy from one side was pretending to be a florist and living in a contested nation. While deep undercover like this, she’d fallen in love with someone who appeared to be a normal local civilian, and was attempting to hide her true profession as they dated. Nico found herself relating surprisingly deeply to the main lead, who struggled to keep her normal life together as her shadow life demanded more and more of her time. The twist, however, was that her lover turned out to be a spy as well- for the other nation. Only weeks after they started dating, he uncovered her identity, and, in doing so, revealed his identity to her as well.

In the end, the two shot each other and died in each other’s arms, lamenting the cruelty of fate.

Neither Nico or Maki said anything as they left the theatre together and stepped back onto the busy streets. At first, Nico didn’t notice the unnatural silence, too busy turning the film over in her head. What kind of ridiculous bad luck was this? She’d just picked the romance film that was getting the most buzz. What were the chances of it being something that would feel so real to her? Not that she really was too worried about having to kill Maki, or anything- she highly doubted that Maki was a constellion in disguise, after all- but seeing the main character struggle as her two lives pulled her in different directions made Nico empathize with her more than she’d expected.

It was at least a few minutes before Nico realized that she hadn’t said a word since they left, and neither had Maki.

“So, what did you think of the movie?” Nico asked casually, trying to start up a conversation to break the silence.

“Hmm? Oh, it was good,” Maki said. She sounded distracted.

Nico frowned. What did _she_ have to be preoccupied by? Nico was the one who had a weird connection to the film, and she was still trying to start a conversation, so why was Maki so distracted?

“What’s your deal?” Nico asked, stopping and putting her hands on her hips. “First you show up late, now you’re not even talking to me? If you’re not interested in this date, I have other stuff I could be doing.”

“W-What? What do you mean? I answered you, didn’t I?” Maki retorted defensively.

“You didn’t try to start any conversation.”

“You didn’t try either until just then!”

“I’m a lady,” Nico said primly. “It’s not my job to start the conversation.”

“I’m a lady too,” Maki said, unamused.

“Hmph,” Nico grumbled, unable to argue with her logic.

“Look,” Maki said, looking away. “I have other things to be doing too, okay?”

“Oh? Well then why-”

“-So,” Maki continued, cutting her off. “If I didn’t want to be here… I wouldn’t be here, okay?”

Taking a deep breath, she shot her hand out and grabbed Nico’s, not meeting Nico’s eyes and blushing furiously.

Nico was blushing a little herself. Or maybe more than a little. She hadn’t expected something like this. Was this kind of PDA okay? It should be fine, right? They were both girls, no one would think anything of them holding hands. Anyone watching would just see a couple of friends close enough to walk hand in hand. They wouldn’t know that the two of them were on a date. They’d wouldn’t know how much their interlocked hands made Nico’s heart race. That was the advantage of dating a girl, she supposed. She’d have to practically shout from the rooftops that they were dating before anyone would take the idea seriously.

“W-Well, of course! Anyone would be glad to be out with the world’s greatest idol,” Nico said, blustering. “Let’s go, then!” she announced, trying to regain her composure and striding towards their destination with renewed vigor.

But not so quickly that she’d have to let go of Maki’s hand.

* * *

The next item on Nico’s agenda was a little cafe near the theatre. It was a small place that only had had half a dozen staff members, tucked away between a flower shop and an accessory store. It wasn’t something that she’d picked by recommendation like the movie- she’d known about the cafe for years, and was pretty fond of their cakes. Giving how close it was to the theatre, it was and obvious choice.

Thankfully by the time they arrived at the cafe, the odd silence that had come between them after the movie had dissipated. It turned out that they actually had a lot to talk about- despite all the times they’d chatted on the roof, they didn’t really _know_ that much about each other. Nico supposed that it wasn’t that surprising, given that rather a lot of their chats had been somewhat combative, but it still caught her off guard how many basic things they were learning about each other for the first time. She’d never even know that Maki was an only child.

While learning things about Maki was nice, talking about herself proved more difficult. Of course, everyone had their secrets, but in general Maki could tell Nico about the major things in her life. Nico, though, was in a more complicated situation. Obviously she couldn’t talk about being Nightshade- Puck hadn’t _forbidden_ her from sharing her secret, but Nico didn’t need to be warned that revealing that would complicate things. Even besides that, though, there was a certain professional discretion that limited how much she could say about her life as an idol as well, and with how busy she was, Nico didn’t have a lot of hobbies. In fact, her main hobby was other idols, and given Maki’s vocal disinterest in the idol industry, that wasn’t much of a topic of conversation. And no matter how much of a nerd Maki was, Nico suspected that discussing her classes wasn’t great date talk.

So what she ended up talking about was her family. Maki, it turned out, didn’t have a very close relationship with her family, so she was enthralled by Nico’s stories about her siblings and their antics. And given how much trouble the three younger Yazawa children got up to, Nico had plenty of stories to share.

The time seemed to fly by as they chatted. It felt like they’d barely been there for any time at all when one of Nico’s stories was interrupted by an alarm ring from her phone. Digging it out of her pocket, her face fell when she saw the time.

“Ah. I’m sorry, Maki, but I have idol practice…” she said reluctantly.

“Oh,” Maki said. She looked so crestfallen that Nico wished she could just say “It’s not _that_ important,” and stay, and skip idol practice to spend the rest of the day just sitting in this cafe, eating cake and chatting.

But she knew she couldn’t. She liked Maki, but she wasn’t going to give up her dream for her.

Giving Maki’s hand one last squeeze, then blowing an exaggerated kiss that elicited a cute blush from her, Nico scooped up her bag and set off to devote some of her time to another one of her identities.

 


	6. Secrets and Strain

For a while, Nico’s life remained in an uneasy stasis. She went to school. She worked as an idol. She beat up monsters. Despite the difficulty of school, despite the tiring nature of being an idol, despite Camomile, she was managing to balance the three.

But that wasn’t enough anymore.

Nico had managed to be two people. When Puck had shown up, she’d struggled at first, but eventually she managed to be three. But no matter how hard she worked, no matter how much she chipped away at her sleep and her hobbies, she _couldn’t_ be four.

She could be a student, she could be an idol, and she could be a magical girl. But she couldn’t be a girlfriend.

Her and Maki had only gone on a single date since their first. It hadn’t been a long one, either, just a lunch date on a Sunday where Nico barely even had two hours free. She could see how disappointed Maki looked when her phone buzzed, even though Maki had tried to hide it, pulling out her own phone and pretending to check something so that she didn’t have to look Nico in the eye.

“Just as well,” Maki had said, standing up before Nico could. “I had something to do today anyway. I’ll see you at lunch tomorrow.”

She’d walked briskly past Nico, not meeting her eye as she hurried out, her hands clenched tightly on her bag. She pretended like Nico’s schedule didn’t bother her, but Nico knew it did. There was an invisible strain between them now. Even at lunch, there was an underlying tenseness to their conversations- they couldn’t really be honest, not around other students, and _certainly_ not around Nozomi. Nozomi knew they were dating, of course- neither of them would have been able to hide it for long, so they just told her. But even if she knew, there was still an awkwardness being too affectionate around her.

So the tension grew. Every time Maki casually asked what Nico was up to, there was a silent condemnation. And every time Nico reminded her how busy she was, it got harder and hard not to snap at her.

Nico didn’t like it one bit. She wanted to get _closer_ to Maki, not start drifting apart. But what could she do about it? The constellion attacks were getting more frequent, school was ramping up in the period approaching exams, and she was starting to get noticed as an idol, too. She couldn’t afford any more time for Maki.

When they finally did get some time together, it wasn’t exactly ideal conditions for a date.

“I’m sorry about this,” Nico mumbled reluctantly, shifting through her notes. The two of them were alone in her room, which should have been good, but unfortunately they were too busy studying for much romance to be in the air.

“It’s fine,” Maki lied, pretending to be focused on her notes. “If no one helps you you’ll probably fail anyway.”

“Excuse me?” Nico asked, offended. “I’ve been just fine up until now, thank you very much.”

Maki gave her a withering look. “Just because you haven’t had to repeat a year doesn’t mean you’ve been doing ‘fine’.”

“Hmph. Not everyone can be at the top of the exam rankings,” Nico muttered sullenly. “And I’ve been trying to get some time off, but there’s just been so many events lately, and-”

“Nico.” Maki crossed her arms and glared at her. “Focus on studying.”

Nico frowned at her. “I know!” she said defensively. “I don’t need _you_ to remind me, thank you very much.”

Maki rolled her eyes. “Whatever,” she said, picking up her book again.

Nico glared at her. Here she was trying to be a considerate girlfriend, and Maki was completely blowing her off. They finally had some time together, even if it was just for studying, and she was being as prickly as she had been when they’d first met.

“Just do well on the next test, okay?” Maki said, as Nico opened her mouth to complain. “If you do well enough, we can go on a date for Christmas when everything’s calmed down a little.”

It was an olive branch. Maki wasn’t saying as much, but the implication was “and I’ll forgive you for not taking me on any dates before Christmas.”

Christmas was still a month away, and frankly doing well on the test was going to be a tall order. But still, Nico found herself smiling as she turned back to her book.

“Fine. You’ll see, Maki. I’ll ace this test!”

“No you won’t. Just don’t fail.”

Nico glared at her again. Maki was a master at killing the mood.

* * *

‘ _Good job, Nightshade!’_ Puck said, flying up next to Nico as leaned against a lamp post for support, fighting for breath.

The fights were getting harder. Previously Nico had easily blown through the monsters, barely taking a hit even with Camomile causing trouble. Now, though, the monsters were getting faster, smarter, and more aggressive. Even worse, Camomile got more and more creative by the day, _and_ she was starting to get a better grip on Nico’s powers. Nico had managed to hide the exact nature of her teleporting around before, but she was pretty sure that Camomile had seen her jump into a shadow at one point, and now Camomile made sure to keep an eye on the shadows, sending flares up to erase the shadows around her and limit the directions Nico could come from.

Today had been a particularly bad one. The constellion Nico had been fighting was a massive bull, with the characteristic spikes Nico had come to expect and almost comically oversized horns. The problem was, it moved its head faster than should be possible, making the horns that should have been unwieldy into deadly slashing weapons that Nico could barely stay ahead of.

As she pushed off the lamp post and stepped towards the shadow, she winced and grabbed her side. She’d managed to dodge most of the strikes, but Camomile had timed her leaps and hit her once, sending her off balance and letting the bull follow up with a devastating slash that would have probably cut her in two if she’d been untransformed. If Camomile hadn’t run out of energy almost immediately after, Nico wasn’t sure if she’d have been able to win. Even with Camomile gone it had taken all she had to finally maneuver through the slashing horns and land a solid hit to the constellion.

‘ _With the bull down, you’re almost done!’_

Nico’s head jerked up as she turned to stare at him.

‘ _...What?’_

‘ _There’s not that many constellions left,’_ Puck said, as if it was totally natural.

‘ _You never told me there was a limited number of them! I thought The Shadow was creating them!’_ Nico accused.

Puck shifted uncomfortably.

‘ _Well… there’s…’_ He hesitated.

‘ _...There’s only so many types of constellion. And they’re not able to reuse them after you destroy them, it seems. So once you’ve defeated all the types, they shouldn’t be able to make any more.’_

Nico’s heart soared. There was an end in sight.

‘ _There’s probably only… five or so left,’_ Puck said.

Maybe she should have been suspicious. Maybe she should have wondered what happened next after the constellions were defeated. Maybe she should have wondered why Puck didn’t mention anything about this before, or been curious about how he knew it now. But at the time, she’d been too focused on the goal set before her. Just five more and she was done.

Yeah, right.

* * *

Two weeks later, that number was down to one.

Nico couldn’t be more ready to be done with this whole affair. If there was ever a time that she didn’t need some monster taking up her time, it was now, with exams looming. She already spent most of her free time studying, but now that had transformed to absolutely all of it, carrying around a set of pocket flashcards so that she didn’t waste even a second. She’d almost completely cut off her idol appearances, managing to convince the managers that she had to focus on her studies for just a short time. She didn’t stop completely- disappear for two weeks and the world might forget you- but hours that had been practice time and rehearsals became studying, studying, and more studying.

But it seemed like it was working. Even she couldn’t fail to learn at least _some_ of the material when she devoted herself to it so much.

Then things went wrong.

The last constellion was cautious. When Nico appeared, it tried to fight back at first, but after a while it tried to escape. And of course, with Camomile causing trouble, chasing it down was no easy feat. So it managed to get away, vanishing into the alleys in a way that something of that size shouldn’t be able to.

The same thing happened the second time it appeared.

And the third.

The fourth time was when Nico snapped.

“Damnit!” she yelled, as she turned back from dodging an attack from Camomile to find that the lizard had once again slunk off into the distance. Another two hours of her time wasted. Another night of studying interrupted.

“Aw, what’s the matter, Nightshade?” Camomile taunted. “Sad that you didn’t get to kill again?”

Nico whirled around and felt a wave of rage well up within her.

This should be over. She should be done with this. She should be studying to do well on her exam so that she could finally spend some time with her girlfriend. But no. Camomile was standing in the way of all that. Camomile was keeping her trapped in this stupid costume, in this stupid fight, in this stupid alter ego that was tearing apart her life!

Before she even knew what she was doing, she’d already started charging at Camomile. Camomile sniffed airily and fired a blast at her, almost offhandedly, expecting Nico to roll out of the way.

But Nico was done dodging.

Crossing her arms in front of her, she caught the blast on her gauntlets, gritting her teeth at the surge of pain in her hands as she pressed forward. Camomile looked taken aback and started frantically firing more fireballs, backing up desperately as Nico took hit after hit, pure fury carrying her through the pain.

‘ _Nightshade!’_ Puck cried out in her mind, but Nico ignored him. To hell with Puck. To hell with the constellions. And to hell with Camomile!

Finally getting close enough, Nico leapt into the air and tackled Camomile, who had started to try to fly away, slamming into her with her shoulder hard enough to knock her out of the air and send the two of them skidding across the ground.

Straddling Camomile, Nico threw a punch at her stupid smug masked face.

Her fist bounced off the air. Another goddamn shield.

Well, it couldn’t last forever.

Drawing her arm back, Nico punched again. And again. And again. And again. Camomile was struggling under her, trying to get away, but Nico was stronger, and it didn’t seem like Camomile could throw fireballs when she was maintaining the shield. She _had_ her.

‘ _Nightshade! Your transformation can’t take much more of this! You already got too injured, this kind of strain is-’_

“Shut up!” Nico yelled, not even managing to say it telepathically. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

Every time she screamed, she punctuated it with another strike, ignoring the pain in her knuckles, ignoring how her costume was starting to fray and waver, ignoring everything except hitting that shield again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and aga-

There was a sickening crunching noise as the shield gave way. Nico’s fist, instead of bouncing away again, kept flying towards Camomile, slamming into her mask. It cracked, and fell away...

Revealing Maki’s face underneath.

Nico stopped, frozen, her fist drawn back to strike again as Maki squeezed her eyes shut and tensed up.

No. No, it didn’t make sense. How could Camomile be Maki? How could _Maki_ be working for evil? How could her girlfriend, the one she was trying so hard for, the one who made her so happy, be her arch nemesis?

Her costume flickered and frayed more, and for a split second spluttered out, leaving Nico as herself for just a moment.

Just as Maki opened her eyes again to peek up at her.

Maki’s eyes widened. But as she opened her mouth to speak, she suddenly vanished.

Nico fell to the ground awkwardly. “What the hell?” she managed, as her costume flickered back, hazy and unstable.

‘ _She must have had an emergency teleport prepared,’_ Puck reasoned. ‘ _Nevermind that. The constellion has returned. Quickly, before your transformation gives out completely, you must take this opportunity to defeat it without her meddling!’_

‘ _Easy for you to say,’_ Nico grumbled, standing shakily.

She felt wrong. She wasn’t as weak as she was untransformed, but she wasn’t like she usually was as Nightshade. It felt like she was barely hanging on to her abilities, like holding a sword by the pommel and feeling her feeble grip strained by the weight of the blade.

The lizard, emerging from the alley it must have been hiding in, hissed and flared its frills menacingly at Nico. It still looked a little beaten up, but it wasn’t stupid. It could tell that Nico was in even worse shape. Now, finally, it wanted to fight.

Nico stepped forward and grimaced as her body sagged, almost bringing her to the ground. Damnit. Those fireballs were catching up to her. Stumbling awkwardly, she managed to evade the lizard’s charge and brought her fists up to guard, frowning as the gauntlets flickered in and out right before her eyes. As the lizard reared up to strike, she raised her arms and gritted her teeth, but she wasn’t confident that she could weather the next blow. This might be it. Finally, the death that she should have had when she first saw that monstrous bear was catching up to her.

Then suddenly, a figure flew out of the shadows and slammed into the side of the monster. The constellion hissed in displeasure and turned on the new foe, momentarily ignoring Nico.

It was Camomile.

Or rather, it was Maki. Her mask still gone, looking just as drained as Nico, Maki floated feebly by the lizard, barely managing to level her staff at the creature currently glaring at her.

“Leave… my girlfriend… alone,” she said laboriously, raising her hand to throw a fireball. But instead of the normal sizeable orb of dense green fire, the projectile Maki fired at the lizard was small and faint, and scattered harmlessly when it hit.

“Maki… what are you-”

Before Nico could finish, the lizard hissed again, apparently annoyed by the attack, and moved to swing at Maki.

“Maki, watch out!” Nico screamed, but it was too late. The lizard’s tail whipped out from behind it and crashed into Maki, slamming her into the wall and leaving her to crumple to the ground.

“Maki!” Nico yelled, running forward at the monster, stumbling along the way. It was closing in on Maki, raising its fierce looking claws.

She just needed one good punch. Goddamnit, she was _not_ going to let it hurt Maki!

As she ran, she focused as hard as she could on her gauntlet. It started to grow a little more solid as other parts of her outfit flickered off like burned out lightbulbs, until her outfit was a hazy mess, barely holding together, but her gauntlet burned bright and solid.

As she drew closer, the constellion turned away from Maki back to her, but this time it was the one that was too late.

Nico’s fist slammed into the lizard’s chest, and she followed through as hard as she could, ignoring the burning in her battered hands. The lizard roared out as her fist pushed deep into it, and with one last surge of force from Nico, it vanished into dust.

Nico stumbled and fell, her transformation fizzling out as the momentum from her charge sent her tumbling across the ground to crash awkwardly into the wall next to Maki.

“Oof.”

It was not, she had to admit, the most dignified she’d ever been. But she still managed to croak out a question.

“...You alive?”

“...Yeah,” Maki replied, her voice pained. “I’m alive.”

Silently, Nico extended her hand in the direction of the voice, her cheek still resting on the ground, eyes hazily focusing on the abandoned street in the other direction.

She felt another hand on hers and grasped onto it tightly.

They stayed like that for a while, neither of them speaking a word, not looking at each other.

Finally, Maki spoke.

“I never thought…” she murmured. “Why, Nico?”

“I didn’t have a lot of choice,” Nico grumbled. “One day I was walking home and all of a sudden this living stuffed animal started bossing me around and talking about saving the world.”

“Saving the world?” Maki asked, confused. “But… Titania told me the constellions were corrupted, and that I had to purify them before they were killed by a heartless demon.”

“What? Corrupted?” Nico slipped her hand out of Maki’s and pulled herself up to lean against the wall next to Maki, glancing over at her. Maki’s transformation seemed to have faded as well. “Puck never said anything about that.”

“Technically, both stories were true, to some extent.”

Suddenly, Puck was hovering in front of them, crossing his arms in displeasure. Next to him was a similar creature, but instead of brown, it was mint green. It looked disheartened.

“But I take offense to the label of heartless demon.”

“What better word is there?” The green creature cried, in a far more feminine voice than Puck’s. “You murdered all of the stardians!”

Puck whirled on her in irritation, pointing at her accusingly. “I didn’t kill the stardians, Titania. I, or rather Nightshade, killed the _constellions_. The stardians were already gone.”

“We could have brought them back! Like we did before!” Titania sobbed. “But they’re all dead now!”

“You know who else is dead, Titania?” Puck said, coldly. “Marigold. The original Camomile. And _everyone else on their planet._ ”

Puck turned to address Nico, his arms crossed again.

“Imagine you had a pet dog.” Puck’s voice was firm and resolute. “You’d love it, right? You’d want to protect it?”

Nico nodded dumbly, too confused to do anything but listen.

“Now imagine it killed someone.”

Titania flinched.

“Now imagine it killed ten people. Twenty people. A hundred people. How long would you keep protecting it? How long would you insist that you had to save your pet? Would you save it over saving a thousand lives? A million? _A billion?_ ”

“Stop!” Titania cried out. “It’s not like that! It isn’t their fault!”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s their fault!” Puck yelled, turning on her again. “What matters is that they’re doing it! How many planets will you sit and watch die because you won’t put down your mad dog?! You keep saying ‘oh, this time it will be fine. This time, they’ll be healed for good.’ But it’s never true! Every time, they fall to darkness again. Every time, they cause havoc and destruction, until someone makes a mistake, our heroes die, and The Shadow burns another world!”

“What… what are you talking about? The original Camomile? Mad dog?” Nico interrupted the argument, trying to sort out what was happening. Why was there another creature like Puck? What were they talking about? “What’s going on?”

“Hmph. I suppose at this point, there’s no choice but to explain the whole story, so that you understand,” Puck said. “And after all, there’s no harm to be done anymore.”

He uncrossed his arms and spread them wide, almostly mockingly invitingly. “Very well. Let me tell you the true history of the stardians and the constellions.”

Nico swallowed and glanced over at Maki. She seemed just as lost.

“This is all started years ago, when The Shadow first appeared on our homeworld. Our race, the pirians, had no military, and our magic is suited only for enhancing others, not for fighting ourselves. We had no defense against them.”

“So we created defenders,” Titania said, picking up after Puck. “There were never many of us. Only hundreds even at our peak, living on a tiny moon of a gas planet. We pooled our powers together and created beings pulled from the stars themselves. The stardians.

“For a while, it looked like that would be enough. The Shadow retreated from the stardians’ onslaught, and we thought they were defeated.”

Puck frowned. “That was when the first constellion was born.”

“At first, none of us could understand what was happening,” Titania said. “On a patrol one day, one of stardians suddenly lashed out at the pirians travelling with it, killing them all and vanishing.”

Titania teared up, and Puck sighed.

“The Shadow found a way to corrupt the stardians. With our defenders turned against us, our race was slaughtered within days. Only Titania and I survived and escaped, using our magic to fling ourselves to a random part of the galaxy.

“We thought that it was over. We mourned our people, and tried to start a new life on the planet we’d been transported to, and to avoid the race of people that lived there.

“But The Shadow appeared there as well. They were conquers. Our moon was just one of many they planned to consume. And worse, at the forefront of their invasion was… the constellions. They’d turned our guardians into monsters, and were using them to take over other worlds.

“But this time, we weren’t helpless. I mentioned before that our magic was best for enhancing the abilities of others. We showed ourselves to the race on the planet, and found the two most receptive to our magic. It isn’t a result of any character trait or anything, merely coincidence or luck. And that was when we made our mistake.”

“It wasn’t a mistake!” Titania said, clenching her fists. “We did what was right!”

“We did what didn’t work!” Puck snapped.

“We created two new guardians, by giving powers to two of the alien race,” Titania said. “Puck created Queen Marigold. And I created Queen Camomile.

“Back then, they had the same powers. A mild ability to fight, to scare away The Shadow and delay groups of constellions. The ability to shield themselves. But their real abilities were to calm the constellions, to undo the corruption of The Shadow and turn them back into guardians.”

“For a while, it looked like it had worked,” Puck said. “We saved our guardians, and continued to heal the other constellions. Until one day, we noticed that we were fighting the same constellion as before.

“The shadow managed to find a way to corrupt the stardians again. We tried to shield them, but we couldn’t find a way to stop it. Marigold and Camomile were good, but no matter how many times they healed the constellions, we couldn’t find a way to save the stardians permanently.”

“We just have to beat The Shadow, then, and they’ll stop being corrupted!” This time Maki spoke out, and Nico felt herself nodding in agreement.

“Just have to beat The Shadow?” Puck asked, whirling on her. “How? Do you know how, Camomile?”

“Well…” Maki fidgeted. “N-No, but-”

“But you’ll figure it out?” Puck sneered. “The last Camomile said that too. Do you think she figured it out?”

Maki was silent.

“No. Of course she didn’t. Do you know what _did_ happen to her?”

Maki looked away, still saying nothing.

“While she was busy trying to figure things out, a constellion put a spike through her chest and left her to bleed out in the street. Then, within a week, since there was no one to watch her back anymore, Marigold was stabbed from behind by one constellion while she was trying to heal another.”

Titania burst into tears. Puck ignored her and continued.

“After Marigold and Camomile were killed, we fled again as the constellions burned entire cities, leaving the populace weakened, easy prey for The Shadow. We ended up here, and I knew we couldn’t make the same mistake again.

“So I created a new warrior. One without the power to heal. One with the power to fight. The power to destroy.”

Puck glared down at the two of them.

“I don’t care what you think of me. I saved your planet by creating Princess Nightshade. Camomile and Marigold couldn’t save anything.” He looked down, his rage suddenly draining out of him. “...They couldn’t even save themselves.”

There was a low chuckle from the shadows. “My, my. A touching tale.”

Puck jumped at the sudden new voice, looking back and forth in shock. “Who’s-”

“It’s very fulfilling, you know. Finding out how well our plan worked.” The voice was strange. It didn’t sound like one person, but like a hundred people talking at once in perfect sync, played over a radio. A well tuned radio, with barely a hint of static present, but with an undeniable difference to the sound of a voice coming from human lips.

“Are you…?” Titania whispered.

“Yes. We are the Avatar of The Shadow.” As it spoke, a mass of shadow stepped out into the dim light. It wasn’t quite formeless- it had some kind of limbs, and an upper and lower half, but it was a mass of twisting shapes, far from human. “And we never needed the constellions.”

“W-What?” Puck asked, shocked.

“It was so adorable, watching you struggle against your own,” the figure said. As it spoke, mouths formed and moved and melted back into shadow, but no matter where the mouths were, the voice seemed to come from all over the creature at once. “But really, we could have always just destroyed the planet ourselves. ‘Sowing chaos and disorder’ was hardly a vital step in our conquest. Merely an amusing one.”

“So… you mean…” The colour had drained from Puck’s face, and a look of horror was creeping across it.

“Yes! You killed all of your pets for _no reason._ Simply because we tricked you into it.” The figure laughed again, the harsh noise echoing like it was coming from within a cave, tinny and hollow. There was no joy in the sound, only malice.

“Then… it was all meaningless…” Puck whispered.

“No.”

The figure paused and shifted, facing more towards Nico.

“It wasn’t pointless,” Nico continued, clenching her fists. It couldn’t be pointless. She couldn’t have been fighting for nothing this whole time. She had been helping people! She was saving the world! It couldn’t have all be for nothing!

Suddenly, Maki spoke.

“You’re bluffing.”

The figured laughed again, but there was less humour in it this time. “Fool. You don’t know the first thing about us.”

“I know that you’re leaving out an important detail,” Maki said. “Last time you destroyed a world, you waited until something was true. Something that isn’t true now.”

The figure was silent.

“Last time you destroyed a world, Camomile and her partner were dead.”

Puck and Titania look at in astonishment.

“You’ve never shown yourself when they’re around,” Maki continued. “You always sent the constellions to fight them. And before that, you corrupted the stardians instead of fighting them.”

“You know _nothing_ ,” the figure hissed, a pattern of jagged lines rippling across its surface. “We do not fear you, and we did not fear the stardians.”

“You’re lying,” Maki said triumphantly. “If you didn’t care, you would have already attacked. The reason you came here now was to try and scare Puck and Titania away, or to make them give up. Well, it’s not happening. Me and Nic- Nightshade will fight you.”

The figure swelled suddenly, growing in size and morphing more rapidly.

“Fools!” it roared. “You dare underestimate The Shadow?! Fine! Fight, then! Be overwhelmed by the tide of darkness! See what good your vaunted powers do you when we put you and your entire planet to the sword!”

With a flash, it was gone.

Nico slumped down even further. “Well,” she said. “That’s probably not a bad sign or anything.”

Maki glared at her.

“There’s nothing wrong with my logic, Nico. They _are_ bluffing!” she said, obstinately.

“Or they just don’t fight unless they have to, and they always had enough time to wait for there to be no real opposition,” Nico said, sighing.

Maki paused.

“...I like my explanation better,” she muttered.

Nico rolled her eyes. “Well, hopefully you’re right.”

Maki quieted down for a moment, doubt creeping over her face.

Nico reached out and took her hand again. “...You were right about the last part, though. We will fight them.”

“How can you just… switch so quickly?” Maki asked softly. “We were enemies. We wanted to kill each other.”

“Because it’s you,” Nico said simply. “Even if you were a total jerk and made me late for _so_ much with your _stupid_ hit and run tactics and time wasting bullshit…”

She paused for a moment and glared at Maki. “Actually, maybe I don’t forgive you. Why the hell did you always have to pick the tactics that made every fight take the most time possible?!”

Maki glared back. “Really? That’s your problem? I wasted too much of your time? Those are some messed up priorities.”

“Oh, what, you want a more morality based complaint? Then how about the fact that you kept letting monsters run around destroying things when I was trying to stop them?”

“Well if you’d have just let me calm them without _randomly attacking me_ , maybe I could have stopped them destroying things in a way that didn’t involve punching them into buildings!”

“Maybe if you’d _mentioned_ what you were trying to do at some point instead of starting things off by attacking me and declaring how evil I was, I would have!”

“Titania told me you were evil!”

“Well Puck told me _you_ were evil!”

Puck sighed. “Is this really the team that this planet’s fate relies on…?”  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, six chapters into an eight chapter fic I can reveal the original prompt, from letnicotop2kxx over on tumblr:  
> "I'm dating my arch nemesis?!" nicomaki magical girls AU


	7. Shadows and Despair

Luckily, The Shadow didn’t make their move that night. Maki and Nico were free to limp home to rest and heal. And they definitely needed to heal.

Previously, Nico had managed to hide her injuries from her family, but this time she wasn’t that lucky. Somehow, by pure effort of will, she’d managed to walk upright, but when her siblings hugged her she let out an involuntary yelp of pain, and that was that. In the end, she managed to convince her mother that she’d just had a bad fall, and she’d be fine, but it was an awkward moment she’d have preferred to avoid. She wondered if Maki had run into the same issue.

Probably not.

It took days to recover. The whole time, Nico was tense, waiting for The Shadow to make their move.

But nothing happened.

There were no new constellions. The avatar didn’t make any new appearances. The Shadow hadn’t revealed themselves.

Nico found it a little hard to focus on her studies with the fate of the world hanging over her. When would The Shadow finally attack? _How_ would they attack? Could she and Maki really defeat them?

Of course, that wasn’t the only thing distracting her from scholastic pursuits. There was also Maki. Or maybe more accurately, her uncertain relationship with Maki.

They hadn’t exactly parted as enemies, but after everything that happened, they’d dragged themselves home without really addressing where they stood. All they’d exchanged was the promise to meet on the roof of the school if The Shadow attacked. There was a lot of bad blood between Camomile and Nightshade, and it hadn’t vanished overnight. Frankly, Nico was still a little angry at Maki. She was torn between pining for her and stewing in resentment over what she’d done as Camomile, and neither helped her concentrate on Modern Japanese or math.

Focus. That was the key. She just had to focus on passing her exams, then make up with her girlfriend who she’d unknowingly been fighting for weeks, and then top it off by saving the world from a powerful entity that had already wiped out entire planets.

Easy, right?

* * *

It was nearly Christmas. Nico had almost started to believe that Maki had been right, and The Shadow really was bluffing.Ever since they’d revealed themselves there’d been no sign of them- no attacks, no further contact, nothing. Even Puck seemed to have relaxed a little. Nico hadn’t relaxed, exactly, but her worries were more terrestrial now. Exams had started, and they provided more than enough worries on their own without the fate of the world being involved. With her other lives on hold, Nico spent some time being just a student.

But of course that couldn’t last.

Midway through one of her exams, she noticed that the room was suddenly dimmer. Glancing up, she saw that it wasn’t that someone had pulled the curtains, or turned down the light, but that the sky outside had suddenly darkened. What had been a beautiful sunny day was now as grey and gloomy as a stormy night, blue skies replaced with an unnatural darkness. Nico’s hair stood on end, a sinking feeling overwhelming her.

That was when the voice boomed out.

“People of Earth!”

It didn’t sound exactly like the avatar had. The avatar had sounded like a unified chorus slightly filtered, one step removed from the listener. This was different. It was like a crowd screaming together, discordant voices mixing and melding with one central shout making it through the commotion. It was more unnatural, though, as if all the people weren’t really speaking, but were being squeezed so that they let out shrieks that happened to match to the sound of speech.

A murmuring broke out in the exam hall.

“We are The Shadow. We have come for your planet. Your time is at an end. Submit or be destroyed.”

Nico glanced around, looking for a chance to sneak away to transform. It came sooner than she expected, as outside an enormous pillar of darkness shot down from the sky like a twisted braid of writhing snakes, slamming into the ground and cracking the earth. Around it, a powerful wind kicked up, sending debris swirling around that began to batter the windows.

Panic set in. Students fled screaming from the hall, with teachers desperately trying to maintain order. Nico slipped into the stampeding mass of students, then broke off as the students fled for the exits and stepped into an empty classroom, pulling the door closed behind her.

Taking a deep breath, she tapped her bracelets together.

* * *

Nico stepped out of a shadow on the roof of the school and scanned around for any sign of Camomile. Below her, blobs of darkness were sliding off of the pillar, twisting themselves into monstrous shapes and attacking whoever they could reach, smashing anything they came upon and slowly advancing outwards, leaving a circle of destruction around the pillar.

There was no sign of Maki anywhere. Transformed or otherwise.

‘ _Puck!’_ she called. ‘ _Where’s Camomile?’_

There was a pause before Puck replied.

‘ _I don’t know. I severed the link between me and Titania when we first came to this planet. But I don’t see any sign of her or Camomile.’_

Nico frowned, tapping her foot impatiently.

A minute passed.

Then two.

She couldn’t just wait here while The Shadow kept attacking people. Maki wasn’t coming.

“So much for us fighting together,” she muttered under her breath. “Fine then. Be that way. I can do it myself.”

She’d been fighting alone all this time, hadn’t she? More than that, she’d been fighting _against_ Maki. She didn’t need her. Nightshade was who protected the city, right?

Stepping back into the shadows, she returned to ground level and sped towards the outside of the circle.

The nearest shadow creature looked up at her menacingly, but before it could strike Nico kicked it in the side. It folded around her leg like she was kicking a cardboard box and flew into a wall, crumpling into a heap. As she walked up to finish it off, it suddenly let out a high pitched shriek and dissolved into a black mist. The mist sped back towards the pillar, swirling around Nico’s legs on the wall. All around her, more shrieks rang out and more mist flew past, the ring of shadows drawing inwards and gathering at the pillar. As they gathered together, another powerful wind started up, forcing Nico to shield her eyes from the dust and grit. When the wind died down and Nico peeked out from behind her hands, the pillar was gone. In its place was not a hoard of the shadow creatures, but a single enormous one.

It looked like every nightmare she’d ever had come to life. It was a constant mass of twisting, writhing darkness, tendrils and arms shifting in and out of it, clawed fingers emerging and lengthening only to retract into an arm, that shifted into a blade, that shifted into a tentacle. Shapeless bulges rapidly moved across it, giving the impression of a sack of frenzied rats. And in the flat spaces on the ever morphing creature, terrifying faces appeared, with thousands of eyes sliding across it and around the other protuberances, all of them trained on her as she froze in fear.

“Nightshade.” The creature spoke in the booming voice that had echoed out before, the chorus of screams that sounded even worse up close. The sound reverberated in her skull and set her teeth on edge. “You will be destroyed.”

Nico clenched her shaking fists, willing herself not to be intimidated. She didn’t need to be afraid. She wasn’t Nico Yazawa, innocent highschool girl who’d been roped into this living nightmare against her will. She was Dazzling Warrior Nightshade. Fearless defender. Magical saviour.

Heartless murderer.

“We’ll see who gets destroyed!” Nico yelled, pushing that thought away as she charged at the shadow creature. It didn’t matter. The constellions had been a threat. This was a threat. She was _helping_ people.

Instantly, Nico realized that this fight wasn’t like the ones she’d been in before. Sure, the constellions had been big, but they weren’t on the same scale at this creature. It swung something vaguely arm-like at her, and Nico realized with a jolt that it was almost too wide to avoid. Changing direction and sprinting to the side, she managed to get out from under the shadow of it with one last leap, but the attack wasn’t over yet. The impact of the mass of shadows shook the ground, throwing her off balance, and before she could recover there was a bladelike tentacle flying towards her. As she tried to roll out of the way, another advantage the constellions lacked asserted itself. The creature’s fluidity. Midway through the air,  the bladed tentacle bubbled and twisted, suddenly springing out huge claws that splayed out in a fan. There was no time to dodge further. Nico brought her arms up and crossed them, catching the claw aiming to crush her on her gauntlets.

The weight of it send a shock through her entire body. The pavement cracked beneath her as she strained against the force behind the claw and the unimaginable weight pressing down on her. It was only a single blow, but already Nico felt her transformation pushed to the limit, pain surging through her legs as the protection of the suit frayed under the power of the strike.

The creature laughed, and pressed down harder. Nico couldn’t push it back, couldn’t get out from under it, couldn’t fight back-

A green fireball slammed into the claw, shifting it enough for Nico to push it to the side, diving away as it scythed into the ground next to her, slicing through the road like it was made of tissue paper.

“Nico! Are you okay?” Maki called.

It was Camomile.

Of course it was. What had she been thinking, imagining that Camomile wouldn’t be there. She was the real protector, right? She was the _actual_ hero, trying to save everyone. She was just late, doubtless because she’d been saving civilians when Nico was focused on going for the shadow creature. Wasn’t that how they worked? Camomile saved people, and Nightshade just killed them?

Nico grit her teeth. And now here she was to swoop in and save the day. ‘Well Nico, I was _going_ to leave it to you and not bother meeting up with you, but if you’re gonna screw up then I guess I’ll come bail you out’.

“I’m fine! I don’t need your help!” Nico yelled.

“What are you talking about?” Maki asked, frowning. Stupid smug Maki. Of course she could be a magical girl just as often as Nico and still be at the top of her class. Of course she didn’t find out that she’d been on the wrong side all alon-

“I managed just fine with you _against_ me before,” Nico shouted.

Yeah, she’d managed so well. Managed to stop the day being actually saved. Managed to make things worse. Managed to lead them to _this_. Of course she hadn’t really been helping anyone. She wasn’t a _hero_.

“What the hell does _that_ mean?!” Maki asked, putting her hands on her hips in annoyance. “I was just helping you, why are you being such a-”

The shadow swung at Maki when she was distracted.

A sharp bladed tendril flew from behind her, slicing through a lamppost as it sped towards her, not as big as the others but so much faster.

It was like watching a replay. It was just like when the lizard had swung at her. Only this time, it wasn’t a wounded constellion’s blunt tail. It wouldn’t just knock her into a wall, it would cut her in half.

Nico’s body acted on instinct.

Before she could say anything, before she could even think, she was leaping, ignoring the sudden throb of pain in her legs as she did, and tackling Maki out of the air. She knocked her out of the path of the swipe and into a shadow, diving into it with Maki in tow and spitting them out on a rooftop a few buildings away.

“What-” Maki started, moving her mask aside to look at Nico.

“Why did I have to be a magical girl!?” Nico cried.

Maki stared at her in disbelief.

“What was it all for? What was even the point? I gave sweat and blood and tears, _literally_ , and made my life so much harder, and it was so scary and painful and awful and for _what_? Everything’s worse! I killed all the stardians, and now something worse is attacking, and I can’t do anything!”

She was sobbing by the end of it, on her hands and knees, her legs aching and her transformation unstable.

“I want to hate you,” Nico managed, eyes downcast. “I want to be angry about everything you did to me. But I can’t even do that. You were right all along. I wasn’t saving anyone.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Maki said dismissively.

Nico looked up at her in disbelief.

“You saved the city,” Maki continued. “Don’t you remember what Puck and Titania said? The stardians just kept getting corrupted again. You defeated them. And you attacked the shadow creatures when I was still trying to get away to transform before they could get to the school and start killing people. You did fine.”

Maki started hard at her. “Now stop complaining and help me figure out how we’re going to beat this thing. Because we _are_ going to beat it.”

Nico kissed her.

She didn’t even realize what she was doing until their lips were already touching. The emotions swirling through her were too intense. Relief that Maki hadn’t been hurt. Hope that they really could defeat this monster. And love, overwhelming love, for this stupid, stubborn, arrogant, brilliant, beautiful woman in front of her. All her anger, all her guilt, all her despair melted away as she hungrily kissed Maki, the way she’d wanted to for so long, every time they were quietly studying or sitting shoulder to shoulder on the roof or walking home together hand-in-hand. It had never been the right time, but _screw_ the right time, if she was going to risk dying then she was _not_ going to die without doing this.

By the time she pulled away, she was panting for breath.

“I love you,” Nico said breathlessly, burying her face in Maki’s shoulder and wrapping her arms around her.

Maki was out of breath too, and as red as a beet.

“I-Is this really the right time for this?” she managed.

“Well _sorry_ ,” Nico said, petulantly clinging tighter to her. The leaves of Camomille’s costume weren’t rough like she’d expected, but soft and cool against her heated cheeks. “Maybe almost seeing you get killed made me a little emotional.”

“L-Look, we still have a monster to beat, okay?” Maki stammered.

“You can’t hide forever, Nightshade!” the creature roared, as if on cue. Stupid thing. Couldn’t it give them a few minutes to themselves?

“ _How_?” Nico asked, letting go and flopping down on the roof. “I can’t do anything to it. It’s too big and too strong, and it can change shape completely whenever it wants to. What am I supposed to do about that? Even if I did manage to get close enough, what am I going to do, pummel it to bits piece by piece? I don’t think it would even notice me punching it.”

Maki frowned, and pondered for a moment.

“...The reason why we couldn’t just heal the constellions was that The Shadow kept re-corrupting them, right?” She said finally.

“Yeah?” Nico said. “So what? They’re gone now.” She felt another pang of guilt, and tried to focus on what Maki had said. She _had_ helped people.

“I have a plan,” Maki said, slipping her mask back on. “Go out there and attack it again. Distract it.”

“What? Why-”

The creature roared and Nico heard the sound of a heavy impact and breaking glass. The building they were on shook.

“No time to explain. Just trust me, okay?” Maki said, taking off as another blow hit the building.

Nico looked after her skeptically. Trust her? Seriously? Their relationship almost ended before it started because Maki had lied about her confession. This whole time Maki had kept her identity secret from Nico. Hell, until very recently they’d been enemies half the time!

But…

Nico hadn’t been honest after the confession either, had she? And she’d kept her magical girl identity just as secret as Maki. They may have been enemies before, but that was when they didn’t know anything. And in the short time since, they’d saved each other’s lives. Multiple times, at that.

She wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to trust Puck again, but she did trust Maki.

Sighing deeply, and resigning herself to her new role of “bait”, she slipped into a shadow and moved to one behind the shadow monster.

“Hey ugly!” she yelled, waving her arms. “Yeah, I’m talking to you, you slag heap of reject nightmares! Over here!”

The creature didn’t _exactly_ turn. It was too formless for that, with no real front or back. But it seemed like more of the appendages were angled towards her now, and its thousand eyes all swiveled to focus on her.

“Nightshade,” the creature boomed. “Your resistance is meaningless. You cannot harm us. You cannot fight us. You are powerless.”

“That’s what the constellions thought!” Nico yelled. “And look well that turned out for them!”

“If you will not accept your fate, then we will force you to.”

As it spoke, the monster raised a tentacle, flicking it downwards with surprising speed, the thick mass spreading out into something like a huge net made of razor sharp knives. If Nico had been trying to get closer for an attack, she might have been completely screwed.

But she wasn’t trying to get closer. She was wasting time. And thanks to Camomile, she had _plenty_ of reference for how to waste time in a fight.

Stepping into a shadow, Nico vanished from under the attack and stepped out of an alley, picking up a jagged piece of concrete that the blow sent skidding her way.

“Where are you even aiming?” she taunted, hurling the chunk of concrete at the monster. Unsurprisingly, it bounced off harmlessly. Nico hadn’t really _expected_ that to work, but it was still a little disheartening to see how utterly useless it was.

Its attention drawn again, the monster tried a sideways swipe this time, scything across the ground and felling lamp posts as it went. Nico was already back in the shadows before it even got close, and suddenly she was stepping out of an alley on the other side of the street. Then out from behind a car. Then under the awning of a shop. Every time, she vanished before it could land any attacks and threw whatever random debris was close at hand to keep its attention. None of it seemed to hurt it, but the shifting expressions on the faces and the pitch of the roars combined with the near desperate flailing gave Nico a pretty good impression that, if nothing else, she was pissing it off.

She surfaced again to the right of the monster and lobbed another rock. Alright, now back into the shadows and-

Suddenly, her legs gave out from under her. She slammed into the ground painfully, catching herself on her hands to protect her face but still taking the impact hard. Twisting to look behind her, she saw why. A small tentacle had burst out of the ground and wrapped around hre ankle, yanking her off her feet. Of course. This was a creature that could _talk_. It wasn’t going to be as dumb as a constellion. It had figured out a countermeasure and caught Nico off guard. She’d been the one distracted by the big flashy attacks while it set up a trap.

Rupturing the ground to free the buried tentacle, the creature pulled Nico up by her leg, leaving her dangling upside down in front of a large collection of eyes.

“Well, well,” The voice was even louder from this close, enough to make Nico wince from the pure volume. It sounded smug, if a horrifying union of screams could convey such an emotion. “The vaunted ‘Dazzling Warrior’ Nightshade, felled by such a simple trick.”

Another tentacle slithered up to Nico and approached her face, the amorphous end shifting into a terrifying collection of blades that looked uncomfortably like scalpels.

“It’s strange that you wear a mask,” the creature taunted. “Are you afraid that your loved ones will hate you if they knew that you were tasked with saving the world and failed?”

The blades drew closer.

“Would it be kinder to disfigure you beyond identification before killing you? At least then no one would know it was you that was given the mantle of Earth’s defender and failed so entirely.”

The tentacle around her ankle suddenly snaked out, expanding and thickening as it wrapped around her like a snake.

“Or perhaps it would be best to simply crush you and leave your broken body on the street as a warning for the cost of defiance.”

The tentacle started to squeeze, tightening painfully around her. Crushing her wasn’t metaphorical in this sense, it seemed. Nico cried out in pain and the voice laughed.

“You’re… wrong...” Nico managed, fighting for breath as she felt her ribs creak under the strain, her protection failing rapidly. “I’m not...the only defender… of Earth…”

“What?” The creature paused for a moment.

Nico’s eyes were trained on a point behind the monster, and she grinned despite the pain. “You… forgot… Camomile.”

That was when Maki finished her spell.

Nico hadn’t been stalling all this time for nothing, after all. While the monster was distracted by the annoying little gnat, throwing things and darting side to side, it failed to notice anything else. It failed to notice, for example, that Nico had carefully kept all of her positions within a 180 degree arc. Meaning that the monster’s eyes, constantly searching for Nightshade’s new location, had never turned around to the south. Meaning that it had never noticed that floating silently behind it was Camomile, channeling her energy, slowly, carefully, always staying out of sight. And now that spell was complete.

The result was like a plant growing at thousands of times the normal speed. Spectral roots burst out from Maki’s chest, budding, sprouting, and blooming as they grew around the monster, trapping it in a cocoon of branches and vines. The glowing flowers and leaves emitted an energy that seemed to stop it extending out beyond the cage, locking it in place. The tentacle holding Nico was frozen by it, still constricting her painfully but unable to finish crushing her.

“No!” The monster roared, struggling against it to no avail. “Release me, foolish human! I will not be caged!”

It didn’t seem like an empty threat. Despite the power of the spell, the branches were already straining and cracking from the force of the monster’s thrashing, and vines snapped like overworked cables and fell to the ground.

But that was fine. The cage wasn’t the point of the spell.

“Pitiful creature that has fallen to darkness…” Maki chanted, her hands clasped together. “By the power of Camomile, be healed!”

A green light glowed from Maki’s chest, growing brighter and brighter until it was like a second sun hanging in the sky, so intense that Nico was forced to squeeze her eyes shut even as she felt herself starting to pass out from the lack of air. Just before she lost consciousness, she felt the tentacle loosen and drop her. Fighting to move as she fell, blinded and sore, Nico’s grasping hands caught a vine. Clinging to it desperately, she slid down to ground level, landing heavily. As she did there was one last flash, so bright that it was obvious even through Nico’s closed eyes and a furious roar, and then… silence.

Carefully, Nico opened her eyes.

Floating in the sky, exhausted but unharmed, was Camomile, her outfit flickering and nearly depleted as she drifted down to earth. Behind her, the dark clouds that had gathered were gone, and the sun had come out again. Where the monster had been, there was giant crater.

And inside that crater was a pile of confused pirians.

 


	8. Histories and Hereafter

It all started when they received a panicked call from a local farmer.

Apparently, a wild animal had gone mad and started tearing up livestock. At first, the farmer had assumed it was rabid, but when he tried to drive it off, it had destroyed the pitchfork he’d poked it with, and it appeared to have strange red growths that didn’t match any rabid animal the farmer had ever seen before. He’d managed to trap it in the barn, but he was convinced it would tear its way out soon.

Oberon had gathered a group of researcher to come investigate. When they arrived, they found the terrified farmer watching the animal smashing the wall of the barn. It was bleeding, and covered in tears in its pelt that hard red chunks of something protruded out of, and it seemed to be unnaturally aggressive. Oberon had made the call to capture it for study. The researchers at the institute of disease control had quite powerful magic, and they managed to subdue the creature and trap it in a bubble for transport. Once back at the lab, they transferred it to a cage.

It had struggled the entire time, and once it was let loose in the cage, it began to attempt to break out of it. As the researchers watched in horror, it slammed itself against the walls over and over again, seemingly completely unconcerned about harming itself. Less than five hours after they captured it, the creature collapsed, its body broken, and its breathing ceased.

After a further hour of observation to confirm lack of life signs, Oberon opened the cage to perform an autopsy. He was wearing gloves and safety gear to prevent infection, but it wasn’t enough. When he touched the creature, a blood red spike suddenly burst out of it, impaling his hand. As the other researchers rushed over to assist, his magic went out of control, pouring into the spike as if it was being drained. Once the other researchers came within range, suddenly the spike extended, impaling him through the chest, and then spikes burst from his own body, slamming through the researchers and impaling them against the walls.

Then everything went black.

The next thing any of them knew, they, along with many other employees in the facility, were in a pile on a strange planet with two strange looking aliens gawking at them.

“Er, no offense intended,” Oberon added carefully as he finished his story. “I’m sure you’re… very attractive for your species…”

“Thanks,” Maki said acidly. She looked like a wreck after the last spell, but even barely holding herself together she managed to inject enough venom into the word to show exactly how thankful she was.

Oberon shrugged. Or, well, he tried to shrug. With Titania still clinging to him her arms wrapped around his neck, he couldn’t really raise his shoulder. She was still weeping with joy at seeing her husband again. The husband she had assumed had died with their planet.

From Oberon’s story, and the stories of the other pirians, who described its subsequent rampage through the facility before it became the entity that Puck and Titania had warred against, the Shadow had only become truly dangerous when it gained access to the power of the pirians.

What it was at its core, they weren’t sure. A parasite from space? Some kind of ancient evil? It seemed clear that it had the power to corrupt other organisms, but it turned them into puppets, not willing conspirators. The pirians that had formed it remembered nothing about being The Shadow, and knew nothing about what it was, even now. Perhaps they’d never know where it came from or what it was.

But whatever it was, Camomile’s last spell had purified it completely. All that was left behind was the pirians it had absorbed. Whereas before Puck and Titania had thought that only they survived the conquering of their planet, now they found that dozens of pirians lived on with them.

After leaving the battle site for a more secluded area (no one in the congregation particularly felt like explaining the existence of pirians to the humans who were starting to carefully filter back to the area in the wake of the fight), the pirians discussed what had happened and what to do next. Nico and Maki found themselves awkwardly on the fringes of the conversation, too clearly involved to be excluded entirely, but so obviously not the ones affected that they had very little to say.

Finally, the pirians came to a conclusion. With The Shadow seemingly defeated once and for all, they decided to return to their own planet and try to start anew, and hopefully one day reclaim the civilisation and beautiful world that had been stolen from them.

“The planet itself should recover from The Shadow’s impact without the core being to corrupt it any further,” Puck explained, as he relayed the decision to Nico. On the other side of the room, Titania appeared to be explaining things to Maki, her arm still linked with Oberon’s. The two of them hadn’t parted since Titiania first leapt onto him when she spotted him in the heap.  “It’s not even a fraction of the pirians we lost, but it’s enough to make repopulation viable. And it’s nice that Titania got her husband back.”

He paused for a moment, a complicated look on his face. “It would have also been nice if…” He trailed off, then shook his head.

“Well, perhaps this is karmic in a way,” he said bitterly, watching Titania and Oberon almost resentfully. “But I will never regret choosing destruction. It worked.”

He turned to Nico, a determined look on his face. “You should always be proud of your part in this, Nightshade. Never let anyone tell you what you did was wrong. You did what was necessary. You made the right choice.”

“I didn’t make a choice,” Nico said, coldly. “You did.”

Puck looked momentarily taken aback, then smiled grimly.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said.

With that, he turned away and flew back towards the other pirians to leave, not looking back. Even as the pirians were engulfed in light and teleported away, he never turned to face Nico again.

In the end, The Shadow hadn’t killed a single person.

That, in a way, was their ultimate triumph. What the media would say about the whole incident was anyone’s guess, but it was clear that no one knew that Nico or Maki had ever been involved. Without Puck and Titania, they would lose their powers, and Nightshade and Camomile would disappear. Everything would go back to normal. 

Well. Not quite back to normal. Something was a little different than it had been before all this.

“You really aren’t going to reveal that you’re Nightshade?” Maki asked. “I thought you loved being the center of attention.”

“Ha!” Nico said smugly. “I’m already the world’s greatest idol. I don’t need any cheap gimmick like this to be famous! And besides, I have my reputation to think of. What kind of idol punches monsters?”

Maki rolled her eyes. “I really don’t understand you,” she said.

There was a silence between them, and then Maki spoke again.

“You know,” she said, twirling her hair with a finger. “This would be a way more appropriate time to say that you loved me. Instead of when we were being attacked by a giant monster bent on destroying the world.”

“Hmph,” Nico said, crossing her arms. “I already said it, didn’t it? It’s your turn.”

Maki frowned at her, crossing her arms as well and glaring. “What, are you only going to say it once ever?” she demanded.

“Are you ever going to even manage  _ that  _ many times?” Nico shot back.

So maybe they weren’t always in sync completely. And maybe even without magical secret identities, they tended to fight a lot. And it wasn’t like this had solved all their problems. Just because Nico didn’t have to run off and fight constellions didn’t mean her schedule was going to open up suddenly, especially since she was about to lose her shadow powers and be relegated to taking buses again. In the end, though, that didn’t really matter. Despite everything, Nico loved Maki. And somehow, unbelievably, Maki loved her back.

Maki was a lot of things. A stuck up junior. A brilliant student. Her mortal enemy. Her beautiful girlfriend.

But that was okay. Nico had a lot of lives. It would be nice for someone else to be able to relate, for once.


End file.
